Son of the Foot Clan
by dementadoom
Summary: Separated from his father and brothers during his mutation, Raphael is taken by the Foot Clan and raised as Shredder's loyal ninja protege - a life of darkness and blood. What he doesn't realize is that he has a family out there looking for him, and they will do anything to bring him home.
1. Chapter 1

**NOTES:**

 **This work is another AU for the IDW comics continuity, although you don't need to know much about it to follow this story, since it branches off before they've even really mutated, and I'll do my best to include all information you need to know; if anything confuses you, just tell me. The origin story of the comics is that the Turtles were lab animals who were stolen by Foot Clan ninjas along with a canister of mutagen, which was splashed all over them when the bag they were in was dropped.**

 **In the comics, Raphael gets separated from his brothers and father for reasons that aren't really relevant here, and ends up homeless and wandering the streets.**

 **This fanfic wonders what would have happened if the Foot ninja - who were nearby and might have seen him if they had looked around - had noticed the last lab animal and brought it back to their clan... and what would have happened when he mutated at last.**

* * *

It was an ordinary night at the genetic engineering company StockGen. A young intern named April O'Neil was studying, accompanied only by a rat named Splinter and four tiny baby water turtles in their glass aquarium. She had a special fondness for the turtles, having named them after four Renaissance artists.

But that ordinary night had changed when two black-clad ninjas had entered the building.

April's presence was no great obstacle to the two men — all they had to do was kill her before she could raise the alarm. As one of them attempted to do so, slashing at her with his sword, his compatriot took specific canisters of chemicals and piled them into a bag. Then he turned his attention to the tiny turtles, placing all four of them in the bag as well.

But before they could slay the girl, the fire alarm was suddenly tripped, distracting the ninja and drawing security to the laboratory. April smashed one in the head with a beaker, and fled as two guards rushed in.

Now the two ninja were clambering onto the rooftop, their hearts hammering in their chests. The one holding the bag could feel the turtles fluttering their tiny flippers inside, and privately wished that the little beasts would hold still while he was climbing.

The cold night air blasted past them as they reached the rooftops, and began running with all the speed they could muster. Neither had noticed that a tiny dark shape — a seemingly ordinary rat — had followed them there.

"Come on," the first of the ninja called out. He was still slightly groggy from the impact of the beaker.

"I'm coming," the second ninja called, clutching the bag in one hand.

Suddenly the furry gray shape hurtled towards his face like a bullet, clawing and biting at his eye. Blood spattered across his face, and a shard of white-hot pain shot through his socket. As he flailed in agony, he lost his grip on the bag, which was sent spiraling into the filthy alley below.

"Vile rodent!" he bellowed, rippling the rat from his face.

He threw the rat with all his strength, down into the same alley that the bag had fallen into. His damaged eye was bleeding now, half-blinded and agonizingly painful. He clutched at his face, groaning through gritted teeth.

"What happened to the bag?" the other ninja called out.

"Eye — can't see—" he grunted.

"Where is the bag?"

With another groan, he pointed down into the alley below.

The other ninja's eyes widened, and he drew in a sharp breath. It was too dark to see what had happened to the bag below them, but he knew that the glass beakers inside weren't designed to survive a fall that high. Neither, in all probability, were the four tiny turtles.

"Damned rat!" the wounded ninja choked, blood seeping between his fingers.

His compatriot turned and scrambled down the side of the building, his heart hammering against his ribs. He could hear the yowling of an alley cat somewhere nearby, followed by hissing and screeching. His fingers dug into the spaces between the bricks, and he cast a frantic glance down at the alley. He could see the bag, open and empty.

Even worse, he could see a puddle of something glowing down below him — something green and viscous. Something that should have been inside a glass beaker.

"No," he whispered, trying to move even faster.

"Wait for me!" his injured partner groaned, swinging himself down on the fire escape. Even with an injured eye, a true ninja was skilled at stealth and speed.

The other ninja cast another glance back the way they had come, at the StockGen building. An earsplitting alarm was ringing out, louder than the initial fire alarm — meaning that someone had alerted the authorities. As he raised his head, he heard the whine of a distant police siren — no several police sirens, ringing out in disharmony.

He scrambled the rest of the way down the building side, and his heart dropped. The beakers had indeed been broken, leaving a filthy green pool of liquid spattered with shards of glass. The ninja didn't know for sure what had been in those beakers, but he knew that it was sure to be a complete loss after spilling onto the muck-encrusted cement.

He landed on the ground with katanas already drawn, ready to fight if anyone entered the alley.

"Grab the bag!" the other ninja shouted behind him.

His eyes flicked over to where the bag lay on the ground. The rat was… the rat looked as though it was dragging the baby turtles into it. That wasn't possible, was it? It was only a stupid animal — how did it know how to carry off all the turtles at once?

"The rat!" his compatriot shouted.

With a desperate surge of energy, the rat pulled the bag violently towards the nearest storm drain. The ninja swung his sword with all of his strength, but missed by a single vital inch — it smashed into the top of the drain rather than the rat just below it.

"Damn!" he roared, flinging himself onto his stomach in a futile attempt to catch the bag before the damned rodent could pull it down into the sewers. But he was too late — just a few inches from his fingertips, he saw the turtles tumbling headlong into the darkness, with the rat falling ahead of them.

A silence settled over the alley, broken only by the distant sound of sirens.

The ninja huddled over the storm drain, suddenly feeling sick. They had failed in their mission. First in by being seen by that stupid girl back in the laboratory, and in not killing her before the alarm could be raised. Then in losing the chemicals in those beakers. And finally, by losing the specimens that they had been told to take from the lab.

All of it gone. All of it lost.

The ninja jammed his hand into the storm drain, trying desperately to loosen it — perhaps he could salvage one or two of the turtles if he was fast enough. The rat surely couldn't have eaten all four by now. But the drain was embedded in solid cement, and didn't budge an inch. All he did was injure his fingers, which were already bruised from attempting to cut through the curb a few minutes before.

A siren grew louder, and passed by directly outside the alley.

"We have to disappear," the injured ninja said tautly.

His partner gritted his teeth and rose to his feet. He knew he was right — there didn't seem to be any way to get to the turtles, and the green ooze was beyond any kind of recovery. All they could do now was return to the Foot Clan, and confess their failures. Perhaps Master Shredder would be in a relatively forgiving mood…

Then something caught his eye — a faint flapping motion in the shadow of some garbage cans. It was one of the turtle hatchlings, still smeared with the green ooze that lay in a filthy puddle on the alley floor. Its small head flailed to and fro as if in a panic, and its tiny flippers fluttered wildly against the ground as it tried to crawl away from the human looming over it. He could almost hear it screaming from fright.

"Is that one of them?" the injured ninja asked, blinking through the blood on his face.

"Yes — it's one of the turtles," he responded.

He carefully lifted the tiny creature from the ground, and slowly turned it over to check it for any wounds. He couldn't see any damage to its tiny shell or plastron, and it didn't seem to be bleeding. It seemed healthy enough — certainly it was energetic, the way it was flapping around. The only problem was that it had been splashed by the green chemicals, which still glowed faintly on its tiny body.

"We'd better get it back as quickly as possible," he said, slipping the turtle into a fold of his shirt. He could feel it fluttering wildly, like a trapped butterfly in a net, and it continued to do so until they returned home.


	2. Chapter 2

The Foot Clan's headquarters were located in a sleek, modern-looking building that overlooked a dazzling cityscape of light and glimmering glass. Inside, the ninja citadel hosted many different facilities necessary for the smooth running of the clan; it was no longer an option to rely entirely on tradition and past knowledge in a modern age.

One of those facilities was a large, brightly-lit laboratory on the seventeenth floor, where a cluster of scientists loyal to the Foot Clan worked on projects that had been deemed necessary by Oroku Saki, Master Shredder, the jonin of the clan. On one of the counters was a large aquarium, filled inside with sand, rocks, a small pool of water and a few artificial palm trees — the ideal place to keep four small turtles.

However, they only had one turtle.

He crept along the sandy floor of his new habitat, small dark eyes blinking at what little he could see outside it. His brothers should be here. Why weren't they here? He couldn't see them, smell them, hear them. His tiny flippers scuffed at the sand as he crawled around, searching for some sign that he wasn't alone in the tank.

He had been in the bag before. His brothers had been in the bag. They were all jumbled together with no room to move — and then suddenly he had been carried off by a monster. Now he was in a new place, a new aquarium. Where were they? They were supposed to be with him.

Finally the tiny turtle stopped his meanderings, his tiny sides puffing with exertion under his shell. Someone or something nudged him, just to make sure that he was still alive, and sent him skittering into the tiny pond. Loud noises came from outside it, from the huge creatures that hovered over the aquarium, watching him carefully.

He didn't feel well. His mind was too simple to grasp the idea that he might be sick, but he did know that he felt oddly stretched, as though something was pulling his tiny body in every direction. It didn't hurt, exactly, but it wasn't pleasant either.

He scrambled onto a small rock, his head rocking to and fro. Where were his brothers?

* * *

"Do you truly expect me to believe what you're saying?" Karai said sharply, fingering her katana.

The ninja kneeling before her did not raise his head, as if he expected to lose it any second now.

Karai's eyes narrowed. She had a very low tolerance for failure, and an even lower tolerance for lies to cover up those failures.

"You expect me to believe that you were attacked by a rat, and that is why you lost the chemicals and the turtles?" she said furiously.

The ninja flinched slightly, visible in his body language.

One turtle.

They had been sent to retrieve four turtles and a collection of chemicals, and they returned with one turtle smeared in the remains of those lost substances. The other turtles, so the Foot ninja insisted, had been abducted by a rat that had attacked them. A rat, of all things — an ordinary rodent. A ridiculous story. As if two ninja of the mighty Foot Clan could be so easily defeated by a common pest.

Karai's eyes slid over to the large aquarium, where the one lone turtle was crawling on its tiny flippers, scrambling across the sandy ground in search of something. The little creature seemed to be in distress, perhaps at the loss of the other three turtles.

She supposed that one turtle was as good as four — it wasn't as if they really needed all four of them to discover what the Foot's enemies were up to — but she could hardly let the ineptitude slide.

"Master Shredder will decide your fate," she said briskly, moving past the groveling ninja.

"Yes, Lady Karai," the man mumbled at his own knees.

She moved swiftly past him and headed for the elevator, seeing the genin and scientists scurry out of her way as she did. But before she left the lab, she glanced back again at the baby turtle. She wasn't entirely sure how losing the creature was supposed to cause trouble for the Foot Clan's enemy — surely they could just buy another clutch of turtles for their experiments.

"Rats," Karai muttered to herself.

She turned the ridiculous story over in her head as the elevator whisked her to the rooftop of the building, where her grandfather was often to be found when he wasn't holding court in his throne room. Oroku Saki often liked to look out over the city, perhaps meditating on the total control he would have over it soon enough. Karai suspected so.

As the doors opened, she composed her face to hide her anger at the fools who had lost the turtles and the chemicals. Her grandfather had little tolerance for her anger unless he shared it, and she didn't yet know how angry he would be.

He was standing near the edge of the building, surrounded by four Elite guards, with his hawk Koya perched on one of his bladed gauntlets. His mask and metal helmet hid his expressions from anyone, giving him the look of a steel-plated god of vengeance and war, immovable and unshakeable.

At the moment, the only other person who was there to see them was Chet Allen. Karai's lip curled slightly at the sight of him. He was a meek, mewling scientist who worked for StockGen; he had approached the Foot Clan some months ago about the ambitious warlord known as General Krang, who had contracted StockGen to do work for him. It was through Allen's involvement that they had known about the experiments at StockGen in the first place.

As Karai understood it, the chemicals the two ninja had stolen included a powerful mutagen meant to create super-soldiers. That was something that ought to be in the Foot's hands, not Krang's.

Karai didn't trust him. She didn't trust most people. But she trusted this stuttering outsider less than most, as she didn't consider "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" to be a guarantee of loyalty or fidelity.

"—and I b-believe that the timetable will be set back d-drastically if we're successful," he was saying. "Your scientists may be able to use th-them effectively with my help."

Karai chose that moment to stride in front of her grandfather, and bowed deeply. When he gestured for her to rise, she did so.

"And what of the mission?" he said in his deep, rolling voice.

"It went — badly, Grandfather," she said hesitantly. "The mutagen beakers were smashed outside of StockGen, and all but one of the turtles were lost."

Allen visibly squirmed at the mention of the turtles. "Oh dear," he murmured.

Karai ignored him. His information had ultimately led to nothing, so she wasn't sure why the mighty leader of the Foot Clan was still tolerating his insipid presence.

"Even worse," she said, "the ninja dispatched on this mission were seen, and the alert has been raised. Our enemies will know what we have done."

Shredder was silent, his eyes unreadable under the shadow of his helmet.

"They knew already," he said at last.

"Master Shredder?"

"This ultimately changes nothing. When more of the mutagen has been developed, we will strike again, and this time it will not be lost."

Karai was about to respond when the sound of running footsteps rang out in the hall behind her. One of the lower-ranking genin was racing forward, his eyes wide underneath his mask. He darted past her like a cat, and dropped to his knees before the master of the Foot Clan.

"Master, something has happened in the laboratory. Something to do with—with the turtle that was brought back from StockGen," the man panted. "Something happened to it — they don't know what—"

Shredder made a slicing gesture with one hand, and the genin fell silent, bowing his head and awaiting further orders.

Karai felt a spurt of annoyance. So the one creature brought back from that disaster of a mission was probably dead. Did it even matter now? The StockGen scientists would likely just buy new ones, and then the experiments would continue unabated. Her fingers tightened on her sword as she prepared to punish the stupid man for his interruption.

But to her surprise, her grandfather immediately left the rooftop, the Elite following a few steps behind him. Karai hurried to follow him as well, and hear the pattering footsteps of Chet Allen directly behind her. Her lip curled, but she said nothing.

She followed her grandfather through the labyrinthine halls of the Foot Clan's headquarters, moving in his wake like a small boat behind a larger one. When they arrived at the laboratory, she saw that the scientists were standing in a huddle outside the laboratory door, some of them clutching one another. One was sobbing, the others were casting frightened looks inside.

 _All this for a turtle?_ Karai thought disbelievingly. The creature was only an inch or so long, and probably sick from the chemical exposure. What was so important about the stupid little animal that the powerful Oroku Saki had to be called to see it?

Her grandfather stopped in the doorway and looked in. And when Karai looked into the room, she found that she was looking at her answer.


	3. Chapter 3

He lay on the countertop amid the shattered remains of the aquarium, surrounded by shards and fragments of broken glass, his very human-looking arms and legs curled in against his torso. A few shards were glittering on the curved shell, itself longer than the aquarium had been.

His hairless skin was the green of pine needles, except for the golden-tan plastron that covered his chest and abdomen. His head was the most inhuman-looking part of his body, though — broader and dome-browed, with a wide mouth and deep brown eyes that were staring straight at the Shredder. Except for the shell, it was the most recognizably turtle part of his body.

He was also naked as a newborn baby, though Karai couldn't really see any part of him that necessitated clothing. Animals didn't need clothing, after all.

She felt a strange tightness in her chest as she looked at him. This wasn't possible. That tiny turtle hatchling had become—this creature, almost as large as she was? How was it even possible? Was that why her grandfather wanted the mutagen that had been lost by those two bumbling fools? If it could turn a tiny animal into… that…

The turtle didn't move as the Shredder stepped into the room, but Karai could see his eyes flicking around uneasily, as if he weren't sure what was happening. Maybe he wasn't. But there was only one way to tell for sure.

She moved close to the counter, and unsheathed her katana. "Stand up," she ordered.

He didn't move. He didn't seem defiant, but puzzled instead.

She pointed the tip of her sword at his face. "Stand up now."

He still didn't move, but this time he seemed to have lost any curiosity about what she was saying. He let his face rest against the countertop, as if he was comfortable and didn't want to move. He couldn't possibly have been comfortable there — he was lying on a shattered pane of glass, and she could see a few small punctures on his limbs where the broken glass had pierced him, leaving drips of scarlet blood.

"Stand aside, Karai," Shredder said.

Glass crunched under his feet as he went closer to the turtle and surveyed the green body in front of him. Karai reluctantly sheathed her sword, and stepped back to watch as the ninja lord moved even closer to the turtle.

"Master, if he's dangerous—" she said.

He raised a hand to cut off her protests, and Karai fell silent.

The turtle certainly didn't look dangerous. He had raised his head slightly as Oroku Saki came closer, looking like a curious child. Glass tinkled and slid from his shell and sides as he shifted to look up at the human towering over him.

Saki stared down into the beast's eyes for a long time, waiting for some flicker of awareness that would hint that it understood what was happening to it, or that it might be able to speak or show signs of intelligence. He tilted his head back and forth, watching as the creature moved its head along with him, meeting his eyes squarely and without the deference that Saki was used to.

The turtle didn't seem to be frightened at all, even though he should be — and even though he was clearly ignorant of the fact that the Shredder held the power of life and death over him, he didn't seem at all fazed by his sudden transformation. Interesting.

Perhaps it was only his body that had been transformed into one more like a man's. His mind could still be one of a mere animal. If that was the case, he was useless to the Foot Clan.

Still, there were other possibilities for the creature. Saki reached out and gripped the upper arm of the turtle, drawing him upright until he was sitting on the countertop. The creature blinked in confusion as the man slowly ran his hands over his upper arms, feeling the hard muscles that were clearly visible under that green skin. He moved on to the turtle's thighs, examining them carefully with both hands and eyes before moving on to his calves. Confused, the turtle raised a hand — all present couldn't help noticing that it had only three thick fingers — and touched where the Shredder's hands had been, trying to figure out why the ninja had touched him.

Finally Saki stepped back, satisfied in his examination of the creature's body. "A mutant, Mr. Allen?" he rumbled.

The scientist adjusted his glasses, stammering, "Y-yes. The mutagen from the labs must have gotten on the t-turtle. I didn't know it would have this effect, though."

"How strong is this mutant?" Saki said, watching as the turtle prodded at his own body curiously.

"No way of knowing without further t-tests. But the mutagen was intended to create a super-soldier. So he should be v-very strong, stronger than an ordinary human."

"Strong," the turtle said suddenly.

He sounded puzzled, almost childlike. The word sounded awkward in his mouth, like a baby speaking for the first time. Which, in a way, he was.

The Shredder mused over this for a moment, studying the mutant's face. He could speak. That might mean he was as intelligent as a human, once he had learned enough. Better yet, he was beginning as a blank slate, without outside loyalties or attachments that could interfere in his destiny as a member of the Foot clan.

"Strong," he repeated to the turtle. "Strong—intelligent—and malleable."

Karai appeared beside him. "Grandfather, may I speak?" she said urgently.

"If you must," Saki said, not taking his eyes off the turtle's face.

"The Foot Clan does not need this—this animal in our ranks. He's an abomination—a freak—"

Without warning, she clamped her hand on the turtle's jaw, twisting his head towards her. Before Saki could tell her to stand down, he saw anger flash through the turtle's eyes like a bolt of lightning. His arm lashed out and struck Karai across the face, sending her crashing back to the floor.

For a moment she stared in shock at the creature that had dared to strike her. Blood dripped from her arm where she had fallen on the broken glass, leaving a dark stain on her black clothing. Huffing with rage, she cursed briefly in Japanese and reached for her katana.

"Stop!" her grandfather said, raising a hand.

For a moment, he thought the girl would disobey him and attack the turtle once again. But after a tense moment, she subsided and bowed to him, pressing her other hand against her bleeding arm.

Saki turned back to the turtle. He was still sitting silently where he had been before, but now he was staring at Karai with naked displeasure in his brown eyes. The sight made the ninja smile slightly. He might be little more than an infant, but he had a fiery spirit.

And just as important, he had strength. Strength enough to easily overwhelm Karai, a trained ninja of no little ability, without any kind of training or tactical knowledge. If he were trained in the ways of the Foot, he would be nearly unstoppable.

"He will need a name," Saki said meditatively.

"If I may speak," Allen stammered, stepping forward. "My colleague named all four t-turtles before their unfortunate loss. If I'm n-not mistaken, judging by the skin tone, this one's name is R-Raphael."

Shredder contemplated this revelation. The turtle was now looking down at his own hands in mild bemusement, so Saki touched the blades of his gauntlet to the soft underside of the turtle's chin, and guided his face back towards his new master. The mutant seemed to realize that it was not a good idea to struggle or resist, and stayed perfectly still.

"Raphael," he said in a low voice. "So be it."


	4. Chapter 4

All reviews are welcome! Seriously, tell me if I'm doing anything right.

* * *

Sunlight trailed through the genin training facility, shining on the heads of the ninja recruits who were moving their way through martial arts forms.

Toshiro wandered amongst them in silence, occasionally correcting a mistake or nudging a stray elbow or knee back into place. He had been doing this job for so long that it took almost no effort for him to train the new recruits — except when someone of exceptional ability arose from the ranks, someone who might have a chance to distinguish themselves in the Foot Clan. Those he recommended to Karai.

Sadly, it had been almost two years since he had seen such an exceptional student. This lot were competent in their practices, but he knew just by watching that none of them would ever rise to the level of Elite or Assassin.

When they finished the forms, the students bowed deeply to Toshiro, who accepted the gesture with a gracious nod of his head. It was almost noon, he reflected, and he was looking forward to a very fine bottle of sake with his lunch.

As his students scrambled off in the direction of the dining hall, Toshiro walked meditatively back towards his room. One of the benefits of being an instructor was that, unlike the genin-in-training, he had a room all to himself.

But then he heard it — the soft purr of a car's engine, and the click of a door opening. He tensed, ready to leap into action if it were to be an enemy.

"Toshiro-sensei?" a deep voice said.

Merrit. Toshiro breathed a sigh of relief as he recognized the man's voice, and turned to face him. Merrit was a dark-skinned, hulking ninja who easily stood a foot taller than the old master, a fact that Toshiro had been acutely aware of when he trained him. He was wearing a suit today, which made him look vaguely uncomfortable, as if he were worried that he was going to explode out of it.

"Yes, my student?" he said, folding his hands. "Do you bring news from the city?"

"Yes, Toshiro-sensei. We're to bring you back to headquarters immediately. This very minute."

Toshiro's brows knit together. "This very minute? I still have several hours of training exercises to—"

"Master Shredder commands it."

Toshiro sighed. Those four words were an effective way of ending any argument within the Foot Clan. Incurring the wrath of their master was always a dangerous activity, and refusing him what he willed was a good way to find one's head removed from the rest of the body.

Apprehension stirred in the old man's heart as he followed Merrit to the car. Had he done something to displease the jonin? He couldn't remember having done or said anything that Master Shredder would be displeased by, especially since the two men rarely saw one another. On the rare occasions when direct contact between the training facility and the headquarters was needed, Karai was the one who spoke to her old teacher.

"I've been ordered to see to your comfort, Toshiro-sensei," Merrit said, sliding into the car seat directly opposite Toshiro.

Ah. So, Master Shredder was not displeased. He wouldn't have bothered with that order otherwise.

"In that case," Toshiro said carefully, folding his hands, "would you mind stopping for some food?"

Merrit obtained a hamburger from a nearby restaurant, and the journey to New York continued as planned. Toshiro watched the rolling hills and forests melt away into suburban houses, and then again into shimmering skyscrapers that loomed over the car like metallic giants.

He felt the apprehension rising again as he arrived at the headquarters of the Foot Clan, and was quickly ushered inside to the Shredder's throne room — a wide, dark room with few people in it, except for the Elite who clustered around their master. He still wasn't sure what was going on here, but there was a faint air of tension about the room.

Much of that came from Karai, he decided. His former pupil was standing at her grandfather's right hand, her face locked in a mask of sullen anger that Toshiro recognized all too well. Her pride had been wounded, and that was one thing that she never forgave.

"Approach, Toshiro," the Shredder said, gesturing at the old man.

Toshiro came closer and bowed deeply. "I understand you have need of an old man's services, Master."

"I have a new student for you. For the foreseeable future you will focus entirely on training him, excluding all others."

Toshiro looked up sharply, forgetting himself in his surprise.

"But surely the genin training facilities…." he began.

"… are insufficient for the student I am bringing you now. He is… unique, and requires specialized training." Shredder raised a hand and gestured to one of the Elite. "Bring him in."

A door to an adjoining room was opened, and two ninja appeared, pulling a third figure between them. Toshiro felt his mouth fall open as he saw who — or rather, what — it was. It was a creature that seemed to be halfway between a man and a turtle — he had a visible shell and skin of a deep green, but he walked upright on legs that looked more human than animal, and he stared around with eyes that seemed too intelligent for a mere reptile.

"This is your new student," Shredder said, in a tone that brooked no disagreement. "His name is Raphael."

"What in the name of the gods is he?" murmured Toshiro. The creature before him looked like nothing he had ever seen or dreamed of. The closest thing he could recall were the stories his grandmother had told him of kappa, but surely this could not be one. They were old myths, fairy tales.

"He is a mutant turtle — a happy accident, which I am putting to good use for the glory of the Foot," Shredder said, leaning back in his throne.

"You wish me to train a — a mutant turtle in the ways of the Foot," Toshiro repeated.

"Precisely. He may be the first of many mutant soldiers that our clan creates — that is, if he can be properly trained as a ninja."

Toshiro moved closer to Raphael, and immediately felt the tension radiating from the turtle. His eyes narrowed into slits, and his three-fingered hands clenched into fists, as if he were ready to strike if Toshiro showed any signs of aggression. The old man smiled slightly, circling around the turtle. That was good. Raphael had already shown some qualities that could make him a formidable ninja.

"I am not here to hurt you," he said soothingly to the young turtle.

Raphael blinked at him, but did not relax his stance. "Hurt… you," he repeated haltingly.

Toshiro's eyes widened. Raphael spoke like a child who was only just learning what words meant.

"How old is he?" he asked, as politely as possible.

"He was mutated only yesterday," Karai said stiffly. "Before that, he was an ordinary turtle."

Yesterday! Toshiro felt a headache coming on as he realized why Raphael had been so quiet during this exchange, and why he had become so hostile when approached by a stranger. His body was that of an adolescent, he estimated, but his mind was still that of a very young child — perhaps no more than a baby. How was he to teach the complexities of a ninja's skills to someone who could barely understand him?

Shredder seemed to sense Toshiro's hesitation, because he descended from his throne, and swept close to the young turtle. "He learns quickly. The words he knows are ones that he has learned in only a day's time, and he acquires more with every passing hour."

"Master," Raphael said uncertainly.

Toshiro sighed, looking into the young turtle's stubborn brown eyes. This might be the greatest challenge of his long life — to make a ninja out of a mutant who was not even fully fluent in any language, and whose knowledge of the world dated back only a single day. It was as if he were teaching a baby in a teenager's body.

"Raphael," Shredder rumbled. "You will follow Toshiro and do as he says. Obey me."

Raphael's eyes flickered uncertainly between the two men, as if his obedience was at war with his fear of a stranger. Finally obedience won out, and he nodded, letting his fists unclench.

"Obey," he said, lowering his head.

The Shredder made a pleased sound in his throat, and lifted Raphael's face, as if surveying a fine piece of art that he had obtained. Or, Toshiro reflected, perhaps a horse. Or a slave. "He is all yours, Toshiro," he said. "Make me a ninja out of him."


	5. Chapter 5

"He is a beast," Karai muttered. "An animal."

"Perhaps he was once," Toshiro said diplomatically. "But clearly he isn't any longer, or I would not be here."

His gaze strayed to the turtle kneeling on the dojo's mats, his head turning to and fro as he took in the weapons racks, the scrolls on the walls, the two ninja guarding the doorway. Toshiro still found it a little perplexing that the turtle was naked, though. Raphael didn't have anything to specifically cover on his body — nothing visible, anyhow — but clothing would set him more firmly in the realm of human interactions.

With a final cinch of his obi, the old man walked out towards his new student. He was pleased to see that Raphael seemed to have gotten over his initial hostility; he squirmed a little when Toshiro knelt in front of him, but reluctantly met his eyes.

"Raphael," Toshiro said patiently and quietly, as if to a child. "Do you know who I am?"

"Toshiro," the turtle replied.

"Very good. Master Shredder has instructed me to teach you to become a ninja. Do you understand what that means?"

Slowly Raphael shook his head.

Toshiro sighed, and passed a hand over his bald head. "It means that you must be secret. Stealthy. You must learn to keep to the shadows. You must obey Master Shredder in all things, and be ruthless, merciless when he calls upon you to be. And above all, you must learn how to fight."

The turtle seemed to consider this, and Toshiro found himself wondering how much Raphael actually understood of what he said. It ultimately didn't make a difference — Master Shredder wanted Raphael to be a ninja, and a ninja he would become, whether he liked it or not. Disappointing the jonin of the clan would not be healthy for either Toshiro or Raphael.

Toshiro rose to his feet and gestured for the turtle to follow him. The first thing he needed to do was determine Raphael's physical attributes — he had a rigid shell that kept him from flexing his spine as humans did, so Toshiro needed to know how he could compensate for that. He led Raphael through a series of basic stretching exercises, watching as the turtle followed his motions almost perfectly. He bent from his hips rather than his spine, but that seemed to be his only handicap — aside from that, he was flexible and surprisingly at-home in his new body, though it must have been shockingly unlike that of a normal turtle.

Toshiro could feel Karai staring at them as he led Raphael through more of the exercises, but he chose not to look back at her. She wouldn't interfere, he knew, but she wasn't happy with their clan adopting a turtle as a member, no matter how skilled he became. And there was something else there — some personal grudge that tainted her dislike of what the mutant was.

"Very good," Toshiro said when Raphael had finished the last pose. "You learn quickly, I see."

"I learn," Raphael responded haltingly.

The old man smiled at the childlike reply, and placed his hands on Raphael's shoulders to turn him around. The turtle followed his motions silently, and watched as Toshiro moved into martial arts fighting forms, one after another, repeating them as many times as necessary. His eyes darted across the old man's arms and legs, soaking in every move. Then he began clumsily imitating them, following the old man's rhythm.

"Very good," Toshiro said again. Raphael's motions were too imprecise and sloppy, but that could be easily corrected. The general idea was there — and as Shredder had assured him, the turtle was a quick study.

Now, to test his actual fighting ability.

Toshiro straightened his clothing and turned to face the turtle, who remained silent and vigilant, watching for what he was expected to do next.

"Strike me, Raphael," he said.

This time, he could tell that Raphael understood perfectly well what he wanted, as the turtle's eyes widened in shock. Wordlessly, he shook his head.

"It's all right, Raphael," Toshiro said soothingly. "You won't be punished. Master Shredder will not be angry."

Raphael shook his head again.

The old man placed a hand on the turtle's shoulder. "I must see how you are able to fight, Raphael. Do not worry. You will not hurt me."

Slowly Raphael's resistance began to ebb, until he reluctantly raised his fists.

"Very good. Now strike me."

The turtle lashed out with his right fist, which Toshiro easily dodged. "Again, Raphael!" he barked.

Raphael grunted and swung his fist again, this time almost grazing Toshiro's ear. Time to finish this, Toshiro concluded. His hands flew up to seize the turtle's wrist, and, with almost no effort, sent him flipping over his shoulder, landing in a heap of shell and limbs on the mat.

Out of the corner of his eye, Toshiro saw Karai smirk.

Raphael's head jerked up, rage flashing in his eyes and a snarl crossing his face. He sprang back to his feet and lunged back at Toshiro, this time seemingly without fear of reprisals for his actions — he again punched at the old master, uttering a wordless bellow of anger.

Toshiro dodged each of the punches easily, swaying aside like bamboo in a high wind. He felt his appreciation for the young turtle growing with every passing moment — Raphael was crude and undisciplined, and his moves were telegraphed well in advance, but his blows had strength and precision. What was almost as important, there was a burning spirit inside the turtle, anger that could be harnessed and purified into something far more useful.

But it was time to end this outburst, before Raphael got the idea that he could lash out at his master this way. Dodging another green fist, he precisely aimed his fingers at the turtle's neck, a strike that would weaken Raphael and bring him to his knees. After that, he could begin the turtle's proper training.

But as Toshiro's hand moved, the turtle blocked him.

Raphael looked almost as surprised as Toshiro felt, as though he had no idea how his arm had ended up where it was.

"Very good, Raphael," Toshiro said, raising his dark brows. "A lucky move, but a well-timed one."

"Thank you," Raphael grunted.

But as Toshiro guided Raphael through more strikes and kicks, he began to wonder if it had been luck that guided Raphael. For the most part, the turtle was clumsy and undisciplined, which was hardly surprising when one considered that he had been a mere animal less than two days beforehand. But occasionally he made a move that seemed more adept than it should — a strike that Toshiro could only barely avoid, a kick that was too precise to be the the flailing of a novice.

A few hours passed. Toshiro was so wrapped up in testing and observing Raphael that he almost did not notice when the doors to the training dojo opened, and the imposing figure of Master Shredder appeared there. He quickly bowed before the jonin, a motion that Raphael belatedly copied.

"What do you make of him, Toshiro?" Shredder asked.

The old man straightened. "I am still finding out his capabilities, but I believe that he has a natural aptitude. He also has great strength and spirit. He will make a formidable ninja," he said.

Shredder's face was still hidden by his mask, but Toshiro had the impression that he was pleased.


	6. Chapter 6

The next few months passed quickly for Toshiro and Raphael.

Though Toshiro missed working at the training facility, where his duties had been taken over by a lesser teacher, he found himself intrigued by the young mutant turtle and his training. He had never had a student like Raphael before — never a student so innocent. The Foot Clan often recruited underground fighters, young runaways and others such who might crave the order and discipline of a ninja clan. Each came with their own story, their own losses, their own traumas. He had never had a student who had no emotional scars or regrettable history before.

Certainly, he thought, Raphael had no idea what his future entailed. That in itself made Toshiro uneasy. Those who joined the Foot knew what they were getting into — they knew that there would be death, battle and brutality in their lives, and they would be dedicated to the furtherance of the Foot. Raphael had made no such choice, and he knew nothing of what the Shredder had planned for him… whatever that turned out to be.

He also found it oddly gratifying to see Raphael's rapid progress in all areas. Only a week after his mutation, he was more or less speaking fluent English — although Toshiro noticed that he had developed a slight New York accent, similar to that of the gregarious Foot ninja who guarded his bedroom door at night.

When he noted this during a training bout, his remarks had confused the mutant turtle.

"He likes talkin' to me," Raphael said. "And I like talkin' to him. Is that wrong?"

"In your case, not at all," Toshiro responded with a smile. The more Raphael could learn, the better.

His linguistic skills were not the only area where he learned quickly. His martial arts skills progressed at a pace more rapid than Toshiro had ever seen before — it was as if the turtle had learned and forgotten whole swathes of different fighting styles, and Toshiro's tutelage was merely causing him to recall everything he had forgotten.

His crude punches and kicks soon gave way to more trained, precise movements, and Toshiro soon found it more difficult to predict what precisely Raphael was going to do during the sparring matches. He was still more skilled than the mutant youth, but had the feeling that — given enough time and proper training — one day that might change.

He was also unprepared for how strong the mutant was. Raphael was relatively small — a few inches shorter than Karai — but his strength exceeded that of many of the larger humans around him. On a few occasions Toshiro had told him to throw all of his strength into a strike with a bokken, only to have Raphael accidentally smash one of the practice dummies across the dojo, splintering it. He no longer told Raphael to use his full strength.

He assumed that Raphael's strength had something to do with being a mutant, though he knew too little of mutations to be sure. All he did know is that among his countless past students, he had never seen a ninja-in-training like Raphael.

Most importantly, his quick progress pleased Master Shredder. He sometimes appeared at the dojo and watched Raphael's practice sparring — and though he said nothing after most of these bouts, the fact that he did not show disapproval could be interpreted as approval.

Toshiro particularly remembered one day when Raphael had been pitted against four Foot ninja. All four were, though hardly elite in their skills, good hardy warriors who towered over the mutant turtle. Toshiro could see in their gleaming eyes that they expected him to be no trouble — he knew that the whispering among the various Foot ninja was that Raphael was little more than a pet, a novelty that Oroku Saki was intrigued by. Like a dog being trained to do tricks for its master's amusement.

The old man did not let those rumors bother him. They would see what Raphael was made of soon enough.

"Begin," Saki had rumbled.

Toshiro's eyes narrowed, and he folded his arms.

One of the men stumbled backwards almost immediately, kicked in the neck by Raphael, whose eyes were blazing like flaming amber. He pushed off the falling ninja and crashed directly into another, pummeling the man's face with only a few direct blows, sending him arcing back with blood spurting from his nose, unconscious before he hit the floor.

One of the others got behind Raphael and looped his arm around the turtle's neck, only for Raphael to suddenly fling himself backwards, crushing the man between his shell and a support beam. The unlucky ninja stumbled away and collapsed, clutching his broken ribs and wheezing pitifully.

The first ninja, the one Raphael had kicked in the throat, had finally stopped gasping and struggled back to his feet. He leaped towards the turtle while his back was turned, only to have Raphael dodge at the last second, stepping aside and driving his elbow into the back of the man's head. The ninja crashed down into the floor headfirst, hard enough to splinter the floorboards and spatter them with blood.

The fourth and final ninja was also the least aggressive, and thus the least inclined to attack the strange green creature who had just trounced three of his fellows. But he still launched himself into the fight, and Toshiro was mildly impressed that he managed to dodge Raphael's first few blows, and nearly swept his pupil's legs out from under him. But the man was too predictable, his moves too uncertain, and Raphael easily swatted him down and left him groaning and struggling.

For a moment Raphael stood in the center of the room, panting and looking towards Toshiro and Master Shredder. His eyes were uncertain, as if he weren't sure whether he was supposed to have done what he had.

Then Shredder clapped his hands, one time.

"You have made excellent progress with him, Toshiro," he said in Japanese. "Better than I expected."

"Raphael deserves the credit, not I," Toshiro said humbly, inclining his head. "He has worked hard."

"Yes, and the rewards for his hard work will be substantial, when the time comes," Saki said meditatively. "He has a fire in him that will burn the enemies of the Foot Clan."

He stepped down onto the mats, over the still body of the man whose head had been smashed into the floor. Once again Toshiro was reminded of a buyer examining a horse, as the Foot jonin surveyed the young turtle with appraising eyes.

Then, without another word, he left the room.

Raphael was still breathing hard as medics rushed in to remove the wounded ninja from the room. Toshiro came toward him and took him by the arm, leading him back towards the small room that the turtle had been given as his own.

"What'd he say?" Raphael said breathlessly. "Did I do good?"

"He was very pleased by your progress," Toshiro assured him in English.

He saw Raphael's eyes light up at the praise, and felt a flicker of pride himself in his student.


	7. Chapter 7

Raphael heard the whispers as he walked through the halls of the Foot Clan's headquarters, and he knew what they were saying once he had passed by. _Animal. Freak. Creature. Monster._

He could feel anger boiling up inside him like a geyser, and it took all of his self-control to keep it from erupting. At least they weren't stupid enough to call him a freak to his face anymore — not after what he had done to the last one. They had had to peel him off the man's bleeding body, bellowing and still swinging his bloodstained fists.

He remembered Karai had looked very smug when that happened, probably hoping that her grandfather would punish the mutant for his outburst. And for the next day, Raphael had been dreading that it would happen, waiting in his small chamber for some kind of punishment. When it never came — and he saw Karai looking sour — he concluded that Master Shredder hadn't cared what he had done. At least, as long as he didn't make a habit of beating the lower-level ninja. That had been a relief — not to have disappointed Master Shredder.

The only thing that kept him from turning to glare at them now was the presence of Toshiro-sensei in front of him. The old man had urged him to not let the jealousy of others taint his mind.

"They envy that Master Shredder has taken a special interest in you," he explained. "So they seek to hurt you in whatever ways they can, especially since you are so different."

Raphael grudgingly admitted that he was probably right. He knew that Master Shredder had developed an interest in his progress, often coming in during training to watch Raphael practice. Raphael had no idea how quickly ninja training usually went, but he knew that he had learned a great deal in the past few months, and was still progressing in leaps and bounds.

And he knew he was set apart because of Toshiro-sensei himself. As far as he understood it, no other ninja-in-training was given special instruction by a ninja master on his own.

He slipped into the locker room reserved for the lower-ranking male ninja, where he usually showered after several hours of exercise. Raphael didn't have to come here — his small room had an attached bathroom with a shower — but he felt a stubborn determination to make them accept him, even if it was just where he bathed.

He could feel the eyes of the men there following him as he made his way to an empty locker. Without a word, he seated himself on a nearby bench and began to undress… if that was what it could be called, since he didn't actually wear clothing. After training with Raphael for a few weeks, Toshiro-sensei had expressed some discomfort with the fact that the turtle's body was always bare of clothing.

"It does not make sense, I am sure," he had admitted. "But to be accepted, you must learn to do these things."

Raphael still didn't wear proper human clothing. However, he now wore items that Master Shredder had had delivered to him — a broad black leather belt with several red silk pouches and hooks for shuriken and smoke bombs, a black mask that tied across the top half of his face, a scarlet scarf about his throat, and black leg wraps that extended from his bare feet to his thighs. This seemed to satisfy Toshiro-sensei — as long as the turtle was wearing something somewhere on his body, he seemed to consider him to not be naked.

Raphael stowed these items in a locker and wandered into the communal shower, where a few of the genin were already washing themselves. He stepped under one of the showerheads, turned it on as hot as he could bear it to be, and stood silently under it, letting the water run down his face.

Toshiro-sensei had told him that morning that, starting the next day, they would be expanding his training. "A ninja cannot rely on fighting prowess alone," he had advised. "You must also learn stealth and secrecy. We will start with smoke bombs."

Raphael sighed, and began soaping his body with vigorous scrubs. As usual, he could feel some of the men in the shower room watching him, but he ignored them.

When he was done bathing and had redressed himself, he went to one of the cafeteria-like dining halls near the genin sleeping quarters — he wasn't very hungry, but Toshiro-sensei always insisted that he eat after training. "You don't want to simply collapse, do you?" he had asked archly. "You'll be no good on missions if you do that."

Privately, Raphael wasn't sure how he would fare on any missions that involved other ninja. He knew that at least some of the Foot ninja resented him, others were revolted by him, and most others seemed to not know what to think of him. He was the only mutant there, an oddity that stuck out wherever he went.

The place was relatively empty at the moment — many of the ninja slept during the day, allowing them to be alert for missions during the night. So without too much trouble, Raphael was able to obtain a ham sandwich and a bottle of orange juice, and sequester himself in a corner.

He was halfway through his sandwich when a voice spoke up behind him.

"Raphael?"

He turned his head. A genin was standing there, looking nervous.

"Yeah?" Raphael said. "What?"

"Master Shredder orders you to the rooftop at precisely three o'clock," the man said.

Raphael took a deep breath, and glanced up at the clock. He had five minutes. "I'll be there," he said.

He ate the rest of his sandwich in just a few bites, washed it down with the remaining orange juice, and was at the elevators by the time he had finished swallowing. One of the Elite was waiting for him there, and the behatted man silently followed him inside, and escorted him out onto the rooftop deck where the Shredder was waiting for him. Wind was blowing across the top of the building, blowing the tails of Raphael's mask from his shoulders.

As always, he felt a flutter of nervousness when he saw the imposing figure of his master, arrayed in his bladed gauntlets and his shining steel helmet. The fact that Toshiro-sensei was standing beside him made no difference — he was always seized by that clinging fear that he had done something wrong, and the Master was displeased by him.

"Ah, Raphael," Saki said, turning.

Raphael quickly bowed.

"We were discussing your progress," the jonin continued, staring at Raphael with piercing eyes. "Toshiro says that he believes you will be fully trained within two months' time. When that happens," he said, his voice lowering, "you will be serving directly under me."

"I'm—I'm honored, Master."

"You should be," Saki said. "You may be the forerunner of a new, more effective breed of ninja, Raphael. I wish to watch your progress in person." He studied the blades on one of his gauntlets. "In the meantime, I have decided to send you on your first mission. And for that… I have decided on a reward for your diligence."

"Reward?" Raphael said, confused.

"Come. I will show you what I mean."


	8. Chapter 8

**This part is going to need some explanations. In the IDW continuity, Raphael and his brothers are the reincarnations of four teenage boys who were taught to use ninja weapons by their father, who was reincarnated as Splinter. So Raph's affinity for the sai here is not just because it's the signature weapon for the character, it's literally him subconsciously remembering that this was his preferred weapon.**

 **Also, this is the only incarnation of the Turtles where they have a mother, Tang Shen. She's dead but did not reincarnate, instead appearing as a spirit to her sons when they are in need of her, such as when Leo is brainwashed by the Foot or Donnie is badly wounded and nearly dies.**

* * *

"Do you know what these are, Raphael?"

Raphael looked around the spacious, dimly-lit room, at the gleaming blades and chains that hung from the polished wooden walls. He could see them extending down the walls, from the floor to the ceiling, like the severed fangs of a dragon.

"Weapons," he said hesitantly, wondering if this was a trick question.

"Precisely. These are the weapons that the Foot Clan has trained in for centuries, and we have raised them to nearly an art form," Saki said, raising a hand and sweeping it at the weapons on the walls. "You may choose a weapon for your own use. Any weapon in this room. Choose wisely."

A ripple of some indefinable emotion passed through Raphael, a shiver that made him feel vaguely fearful but also hopeful. Slowly he turned towards the wall, surveying the katana that was sheathed on a pair of display hooks. His hands brushed the sword, but then drew back. No, he thought, this wasn't right. Not for him.

He glanced over a pair of tonfa before moving on to nunchaku, a weapon that had frustrated him in the past. A kusarigama, with its wickedly gleaming sickle and long heavy chain. The ninjato, another sword. A kusari-fundo, which he didn't like the feel of — he preferred an object that was solid in his hands to one whose whirling and movements had to be controlled. A naginata… no, too long and difficult to carry, especially for someone his height. The bo staff was a little smaller, but it didn't feel right either. He wanted something with a blade or point.

He could feel Master Shredder and Toshiro-sensei's eyes fixed on him as he moved around the room, examining each weapon carefully. Sometimes he took the weapon down from its display hooks, and hefted it in his hands before carefully putting it back. None of them felt right.

Then a gleam of steel caught his eye — two long, pointed weapons with shorter, curving prongs on the sides, crossed over each other. Sai. Raphael carefully took them from the wall, and felt them slip easily into the palms of his hands, as if he were already familiar with them. His fingers closed around the slender steel, so that they protruded like claws from his hands.

A shiver ran through his body. These felt right. He felt… complete holding them.

"These," he said quietly. "I want these."

"Twin sai," Toshiro-sensei said meditatively, coming closer. "A good choice for you, Raphael."

Master Shredder made a satisfied sound in his throat, as if he had been planning for Raphael to take those weapons all along.

"We will of course continue practicing with other weapons, too," Toshiro-sensei continued. "But those will be yours, Raphael. And you will learn how to use them to the best of your ability."

"And then — he will fight well with them for the Foot," Shredder said, turning and leaving the room.

A strange look came over Toshiro-sensei's face, almost as if he were pained by the remark that Master Shredder had made. Raphael almost asked him what was wrong, but the expression was so fleeting that he almost thought he had imagined it.

* * *

That night, Raphael sat alone in his dimly-lit room, which was furnished with little aside from a futon, a low wooden table and a paper lamp. He had left his only real personal mark on the room by laying out the standard smaller weapons that he had been given, shuriken and kunai, which he had arranged in rows on the table.

But this evening his eyes were fixed on the sai. He couldn't seem to get enough of looking at them, turning them over in his hands and testing different grips and positions. He even tested the unusually sharp tips on his fingers, accidentally drawing blood from one of his thumbs as he did so. He stuck the thumb in his mouth absent-mindedly as he turned the sai in his other hand, holding it up to the light to see it gleam.

His practice the next day had been postponed, in favor of preparing for a mission he had been ordered to attend with Karai. It was a simple mission — they were meeting with representatives of the Mafia in order to secure tributes for the Foot Clan — but Raphael was not looking forward to it. He knew Karai hated him, and had hated him for as long as he could remember — although he was a little fuzzy on exactly why. Following her on a mission was not something he expected to enjoy.

He just had to endure it. If he could get through tomorrow, then it would be back to training with Toshiro-sensei.

With a sigh, he placed the sai on the table beside his shuriken, and scrambled over to his bed. It sometimes felt like the only place in the Foot where he could truly relax — the rest of the time, he was constantly tensed for training, for the dislike of the other ninja, for the desire to please Master Shredder.

The sound of voices caught his ear, and he raised his head to listen. After a moment he recognized them as the voices of his guards, two Foot ninja who stood outside his room all night, every night. Raphael wasn't entirely sure why he had guards — after all, even if he wanted to sneak out somewhere, there was nowhere else for a mutant like him to go.

On some nights, he left the door open and conversed with the guards before falling asleep. But on this particular night, he just wanted to fall asleep quickly, so the events of the next day would be over that much faster.

He pulled a coverlet over himself, rested his head on his curled arm, and closed his eyes.

He didn't actually remember falling asleep, only that the smell of flowers and fresh spring grass seemed to fill the room as he dozed, scents that he rarely ever encountered. Eyes still closed, he stretched out slightly and sniffed the air, a faint smile crossing his face.

 _"Do you like this place?"_

 _He sat up sharply, looking around himself at the garden that seemed to have sprung out of nowhere. Maple leaves ruffled softly in the breeze, and willows dipped down over a babbling creek that fed into a small, peaceful pond in which a few large koi swam. Flowers seemed to rise from every spot that was uncovered by something else, curling out into the air and creeping into the path that wound through them._

 _And in the middle of it all was a woman, with long dark hair and an ornate kimono decorated with embroidered phoenixes. Raphael stared at her with mild perturbation, unsure what to say or do. She was beautiful — and better than that, there was a kindness, a softness to her face that was always missing from Karai's, or those of any of the other women he had encountered in the Foot._

 _She seemed vaguely familiar to him, as if she were a person he had met once but forgotten over time. And yet, this woman didn't seem like the sort of person who would be easily forgotten._

 _Raphael scrambled up to his knees, looking at the woman. "I — yes, I do," he said hesitantly._

 _The woman smiled gently, and held out her hand to touch Raphael's face. He remained still and silent as she caressed his cheek._

 _"That is good. I hoped that this garden would bring you some peace of mind."_

 _He blinked up at her. "Who — are you?" he said._

 _She leaned forward and pressed her lips between his eyes. "Does my brave son not know his own mother?" she said gently._


	9. Chapter 9

The dream clung to Raphael's mind throughout the next day. It didn't fade as most dreams tended to do — if anything, he remembered more vividly the garden, the woman who had greeted him so warmly — more so than any person he had ever met, even Toshiro-sensei — and invited him to walk with her for a while. When he woke, he thought he smelled the flower-scented wind still lingering in the morning air.

Some parts of it didn't make sense to him, though. Why had he dreamed of a human mother? He had been born a turtle; on the rare occasions when he thought of where he had come from, he knew that his mother had been an animal who had likely never even seen him. The only biological family he had ever had, he had been told, were the other turtles who had been lost down a sewer drain months ago.

When Master Shredder had told him that, he had put a hand on Raphael's shoulder and assured him, "But that does not matter. What matters is that you have a true family — a true clan. You belong to it, body and soul."

And yet… and yet the woman in his dream had felt so real. And it had somehow felt so right when she called him her son.

The dream was still haunting his memories as he joined the squad Karai was leading to the meeting. He had slipped the sai into his belt, and the reassuring weight of them reminded him of the trust Master Shredder was putting in him — especially since he wasn't even fully trained yet. He felt a swell of pride at the thought.

"… perimeter to ensure that the Italians do not attempt treachery," Karai was saying to the ninja around her.

When her eye fell on Raphael, he saw anger flash in it for a moment. It seemed that she was as happy as he was about this joint mission.

"Let's hope you can keep up… Raphael," she said in a bitingly civil voice.

"Don't worry 'bout me," he said, resting his hands on his sai.

He had been planning to hold back on the journey to the meeting place, as he often did when surrounded by humans. But Karai's open disdain stoked something in him, and he could feel anger flickering in the edges of his mind like flames licking at paper. If she wanted him to keep up, he would show her he could.

As the ninjas raced across rooftops, Raphael let himself go. He could run as swiftly — or even a little faster — than the quickest human there, and he could see Karai straining to keep up with him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her glaring at him as she ran, her face flushed with the effort.

They paused over one of the city streets, a wide expanse between two buildings that could only be crossed by grappling lines. But as Karai and the others pulled the ropes from their belts, Raphael flung himself out into the open air.

For a moment he felt himself soaring across the road, felt the wind blowing over his bare skin, saw the glittering of lights, glass and metal far down below him. A thrill went through him as he realized that none of the humans below were seeing him — or if they were, they had no idea what they had truly seen. A mutant turtle ninja, of all things.

Then he landed lightly on the opposing building, gripping the edge with his toes. He turned to face the other ninja, who had been watching silently.

He remained where he was as they threw their grappling hooks and followed him across the way. Karai's face was its usual mask of distaste as she was forced to follow him rather than the other way around, and she made a point of not looking at him as she passed. But the other ninja there were still staring, though the masks on their faces meant that Raphael couldn't tell if they were impressed, angry or just surprised.

He held back more on the rest of the journey there, not wanting to push his luck. Karai already hated him, so it probably wasn't a good idea to needle her more than he had to. Even if he did love the idea.

Their destination was a darkened electronics warehouse that belonged to the Mafia, which they often used for official business. But the sight of it made Raphael's skin crawl for some indefinable reason. Its open loading dock and high, empty windows made the place look like a bloated face with a yawning maw, which wasn't exactly what he wanted to think of.

"Spread out. Make sure no one else is on the premises," Karai snapped.

Raphael took the opportunity to head into the building, trying to ignore the feeling that he was walking into an open mouth. Inside were massive steel shelves that reached all the way to the ceiling, loaded with large cardboard boxes that showed brightly-lit televisions and computers. They were a perfect place for an ambush, Raphael thought darkly, if someone just wanted to wedge themselves between the boxes. He glanced over them silently, watching for any flicker of movement.

Karai strode past him, her katana already half-drawn in her hand.

"The area seems to be secure," one of the other ninja said, sounding nervous.

"Make sure of it," Karai ordered.

Raphael followed her through the maze of steel shelves and heavy boxes, keeping his eyes moving constantly for a sign of anything odd. At the end of the warehouse was an area that was dimly lit by several small lamps, and Karai was heading straight for it.

His eyes flickered back to the walls on every side, and his ears strained to hear some sign of anything suspicious. He was suddenly acutely aware of all the dark corners of the warehouse, the rustling wind blowing in from the loading dock, and the faint rattling on the rooftop above him…

Then he saw who was waiting for Karai — a tall man with pitch-black hair streaked with gray, wearing what looked like an expensive suit. He was draped over an upholstered chair with a leather briefcase on the floor beside him, which Raphael assumed was the tribute. He was surrounded by younger men, and Raphael could tell by the way their black jackets fell that they were all carrying guns.

Of course, he thought with an inner smirk, a good ninja could easily compensate for that.

"Karai, I presume," the man said, sounding more casual than people usually were when dealing with the Foot Clan. "Welcome, welcome. I am Paul Marino."

Karai said nothing, only gave him a curt nod when he said her name.

Marino's eyes settled on Raphael next, studying him intently. It made Raphael want to squirm. "And this — I see this is the Foot Clan mutant I've heard so much about. Very interesting. He's what, a frog? A lizard? No, I see his back now — he's a turtle." He smiled slightly. "Well, if you ever decide you don't want him, I will gladly take him off your hands."

Raphael's eyes narrowed. Few things made him angrier than being treated like a pet or a possession, and he could feel rage stewing inside him at that very moment.

"Where is the tribute?" Karai said sharply.

Marino patted a leather briefcase beside his chair, as if it were a loyal dog. "Right here, you see. Four million, just as agreed." But he made no move to actually give Karai the briefcase, merely sitting in place with a contented smile on his face.

Raphael felt his anger slipping away, and uneasiness began to take its place. He looked around at each of the men standing still — perhaps a little too still — in front of him, his eyes moving from one gun to the next. Without conscious thought, his hands drifted up to his sides, where his sai rested against his plastron.

Then he heard a click from somewhere in the darkness behind him, and a voice whispering a single word in Italian. _Vendetta._

"It's a trap!" he shouted.


	10. Chapter 10

He heard a loud crack ring out as one of the guns went off, and saw a few strands of Karai's black hair fly from her head as a bullet flew too close to her. Her eyes widened in shock and then narrowed in outrage, and her half-drawn katana whipped out of its sheath.

"Treachery!" she shouted. "Foot, attack!"

Raphael didn't need to be told twice. He leaped forwards towards Marino's men, his sai already protruding from his hands like steel claws, his eyes burning like twin embers behind his black mask.

Out of the corner of his eye, Raphael saw Karai whirling through a number of the thugs, her sword flashing like a stream of silver. Most of them seemed to be coming out of the crevices of the warehouse, streaming like ants out of an anthill.

One of Marino's men went down with barely a struggle, not realizing that the mutant was hurtling at him until it was already too late, and a sai had slashed across his throat. The gunman next to him swept his arm towards Raphael, a gleaming pistol already out and preparing to fire. Raphael had barely enough time to kick it straight up into the air, and kicked the man hard enough to send him flying back into the massive steel shelving unit behind him. He crumpled to the ground, blood trickling from his head.

Another man lunged at him, this one smart enough to keep his pistol close to his body. His dark eyes were frenzied with loathing.

"Freak!" the man spat. "This is for my brother!"

One of the sai flew directly into the barrel, splintering the gun from the inside out. Raphael snatched the weapon back as he kicked the man in the torso, and kept kicking until he heard the crack of ribs being broken, and the man crumpled to the floor like a wilted flower.

He was just about to turn when he felt a line of fire cutting itself down the side of his arm, and looked down just as a bloody knife was drawing away from his bicep. One of Marino's men, a brawny man with small glittering eyes, had drawn an enormous knife and was brandishing it against the mutant, Raphael's blood still dripping from the blade. The man seemed very pleased with himself for finally getting a strike against the Foot mutant.

Too bad for him that sai were meant to defend against blades, Raphael thought with a smirk.

He feinted to the left to draw the man closer, and waited for the guy to swing his knife again. When he did, Raphael swung one of his sai up and caught the blade, then twisted it from the man's grip, sending it clattering away into the darkness behind him.

"Gotcha!" Raphael said, grinning.

The man was stupid enough to not simply run while he had the opportunity, and drew another, smaller knife from inside his jacket. Raphael would have rolled his eyes if he had the time to spare, but as it was, he simply slashed at the man with the tip of his sai. The man dodged away, only to have a sai crunch through the bones of his hand, pinning it to the cracked concrete wall. He uttered a bloodcurdling scream and clawed at his bleeding appendage.

"Time to learn when to give up," Raphael grunted, giving the man a final strike to the neck before pulling the sai free. For good measure, he slipped the man's fallen knife into his belt, before plunging back into the shadows of the warehouse.

Two of the Foot ninja had already been killed — or so Raphael presumed, since they were sprawled in puddles of blood — but the others were putting up a good fight against the thugs who had been hiding in the warehouse's shadows. And the clatter of feet on the rooftop showed that the conflict even extended outside the building.

Raphael turned a corner and gritted his teeth. Two more Mafia thugs were waiting there for him, their eyes glinting in the dark. These two seemed to be smarter than the rest, as they lunged towards Raphael in almost perfect unison, knives gleaming and teeth bared.

He lashed out with his left leg, catching one of them in the gut and throwing him backwards, while swiping his sai at the other one. Another knife slashed past him, barely grazing his plastron.

"Monstro!" one of them snarled. "Not so tough when you have to deal with more than one of us!"

"Most people—don't boast—about gangin' up!" Raphael grunted, dodging another slash.

Something cracked against his back, and a shiver seemed to run through his shell. Raphael swept around to find a weedy, weasel-faced little man holding a crowbar, a look of panic crossing his face as he realized that he had barely fazed the angry mutant in front of him.

Raphael plunged his sai into the man's shoulder, throwing him backwards, but didn't have time to finish him as another knife swept by his face, almost slicing off the tails of his mask. Instead he tightened the grip on his sai, and smashed it into the attacker's trachea with all his strength. The man wheezed and went down.

His partner looked at Raphael with wide, terrified eyes as he realized that he was the only one there, and that nothing stood between him and the unstoppable green creature who had taken down half a dozen Mafia underlings, and suffered only a slash on one arm. He began to back away, still clutching his knife defensively.

Raphael started to go after him, determined to finish what he had started, but something gray moved swiftly in the corner of his eye. As he turned his head, he caught a glimpse of something lanky and tall vanishing out onto the loading dock. Marino.

A snarl crossed his face as he charged out after Marino. He could hear a car engine purring outside, and saw the blinding white flash of headlights as a black car swerved into the bay. As he leaped towards Marino, he caught a glimpse of something glinting in the light of the headlights, and saw the man stretching out his arm.

A loud bang cracked out through the night air, and Raphael felt a bullet dart past his face. It was just enough to throw him off-balance, making him stumble back a step. Marino flashed a shining grin at him, as if taunting with his failure, and stepped into the car.

"No!" Raphael shouted, his hand going to his belt and clasping around a shuriken. Desperate to do something, he flung it with all his strength — and heard Marino scream. But then the car swerved away and vanished into the street outside, leaving behind only the smell of burned tires and exhaust.

A bestial growl tore its way from Raphael's chest, and his hands balled into fists at his sides. He had been so close, so horribly close — if he hadn't stumbled at the last minute, he would have had Marino. He could have brought him down easily, even if Marino had a gun. He could have brought Master Shredder the treacherous man's head that very night, and proved that he was worthy to be part of the Foot Clan.

Then Raphael heard the sound of a sword being sheathed behind him, and stiffened. For a moment he thought someone was about to attack him again, and his hands were holding his sai, ready to fight. Then he saw the moonlight gleam on a cap of chin-length black hair.

"How long have you been there?" he said bitterly.

"Long enough," Karai said sharply, stepping out of the shadows. Her mouth twisted into a mocking smile as she surveyed the turtle. "I'm sure my grandfather will be pleased that you worked so diligently to capture Marino, even if you failed."

 _Failed_. The word rang in Raphael's ears, tightening every muscle in his body. His first mission, and he had failed. He looked down at the bloodstains on his sai, and wiped them absently against his leg.


	11. Chapter 11

His failure hung around Raphael's neck like a thick, choking chain as Karai made her report to Master Shredder, describing the Mafia's treachery and the losses they had suffered. Three Foot ninja had been killed during the battle, though they had inflicted greater damage by taking down seventeen of their foes. Several of the Mafia's underlings had escaped when they realized that this was not a battle they could easily win, and that the Foot was likely to have reinforcements on the way.

Shredder remained silent through most of this, his hands steepled in front of his masked face. Occasionally he asked Karai a pointed question about the combat they had endured, and any evidence from the bodies that the Foot had brought back from the warehouse. Karai's voice echoed faintly in the throne room as she responded promptly to each question.

"And this Marino?" Shredder rumbled.

"He escaped. Raphael was unable to apprehend him," Karai said, her eyes betraying a glint of malice.

Raphael kept his head bowed, not daring to look up. But he stiffened as he heard Karai's tone.

"Raphael was the only one to pursue him?" Shredder inquired.

A glimmer of dismay appeared in Karai's eyes. "Yes, he—he was the one who tried, and failed, to stop Marino's escape. Perhaps, if he cannot cope with the challenges, he is not ready to take part in our missions."

Raphael could feel her eyes burning through his shell, but he forced himself to stay still and silent.

"A ninja not even fully trained was able to pursue Marino, and yet my second-in-command was not even able to do that much," Shredder said, his eyes piercing like daggers. "Why is that?"

For once, Karai seemed to be at a loss for words. Out of the corner of Raphael's eye, he could see her face flushing as she bowed before her grandfather. "I was engaged in battle at the time," she said.

"I see," Shredder said. "And Raphael was not?"

Karai gritted her teeth.

Shredder leaned back slightly in his chair, his eyes slowly moving from the young woman to the mutant turtle, and then back again. His fingertips tapped lightly together, as if he were lost in thought.

"Karai, contact Antonio. I will permit him an explanation for this treachery, if he delivers us Marino and his conspirators." His gaze swung back towards Raphael, whose eyes were still fixed on the floor. "In the meantime, leave me with Raphael."

A cold, clenching sensation rippled through Raphael's chest and stomach, almost stealing his breath away. He barely noticed that Karai had excused herself, with an oblique glance at him, and vanished from the room. All he could think of were those terrible seconds when he had failed to capture his quarry, and the question of what Master Shredder would do now. Was his master angry? Was he about to be punished?

"Raphael, look up," Master Shredder ordered.

Raphael swallowed convulsively and did as he was bidden. His master's face was still covered by his mask, which effectively hid most of his expressions unless he was enraged.

"I'm sorry, Master," Raphael said hesitantly. "I didn't mean—I almost had him, but I—"

"Silence."

Raphael fell silent, almost deafened by the roaring in his ears.

"I am not here to speak of your failure in apprehending Marino. I am here to speak of what else you did in that warehouse."

"What else—I—"

"The warehouse has extensive security cameras that recorded the entire battle," Shredder said, leaning forwards on his throne. "Including the fights that you participated in."

Raphael's eyes darted across Shredder's masked face, searching for some sign of what his master was thinking. He couldn't remember much of the fights he had been in, but he knew he had won them — he had stabbed, slashed, kicked and struck until the men he had pursued were dead or badly injured, using the training that Toshiro-sensei had drilled into him. Had he somehow done it wrong?

"Raphael," Shredder rumbled, "I was pleased."

Raphael blinked, not entirely sure what to say.

"You fought with skill and precision, but above all with strength — the strength that is needed to crush your enemies, to destroy them without holding back, without weakness." Shredder rose from his throne, and descended towards Raphael, his cape flaring around him. "I saw you fight as you are truly meant to fight — not as you fight in practice, or against other Foot whom you spare for the clan's sake, but with ferocity and power. You fought as a true warrior."

Raphael's breath caught in his throat at the praise.

Shredder placed one bladed hand on Raphael's shoulder. "You are a sword meant to slay the Foot's enemies without mercy, Raphael. When your training is complete, you will be a formidable ninja."

Relief flooded through Raphael's b0dy, and he felt slightly weak at the knees now that he knew he wasn't about to be punished. "Thank you, Master," he said quietly.

Shredder dismissed him, and Raphael bowed and left, feeling his spirits lift now that he knew he had his master's approval. Despite Karai's best efforts, Master Shredder had seen how hard he had fought, and thought well of him. That was all he could ask for.

* * *

Once the initial thrill of Shredder's approval faded, Raphael found that he was tired to the bone, and his arm still ached where one of his enemies had cut it. It wasn't a very deep slash, but it had bled a great deal on the return journey to the Foot's headquarters, leaving streams of dark blood on Raphael's green skin. He made his way to the medical clinic the Foot kept in the lower levels, and sat silently as one of the doctors disinfected his wound — which hurt more than the wound itself had — and, after deliberating on whether he needed stitches, bound it tightly in bandages.

From there he limped back to his room. He thought briefly about going to the dining hall and finding something to eat, since he had probably burned off anything he had eaten earlier, but at this time of night it would be at least half full of ninja. He didn't feel up to being scrutinized by a few hundred people when he was bandaged and splattered in dried blood.

His guards were already there, waiting for him.

"Good night," the more talkative of the two said to him.

"G'night," Raphael mumbled, almost falling through the door.

He quickly stripped off his belt, wraps and mask, and quickly washed himself to get the worst of the blood off his body. Then he collapsed into his bed, scrabbling under his coverlet as his eyes drifted shut. Finally, some peace and quiet…

 _"_ _Have you come to see me again, my son?"_

 _He found himself in the garden again, surrounded by tall waving grass and wildflowers that bloomed between the trees. Mother was standing there as well, smiling and inclining her head towards him._

 _"_ _Y-yes, Mother," he said hesitantly._

 _"_ _Come, walk with me," she said, holding out her arm. Raphael took her hand, and let her lead him onto the winding path that rounded the pond. A cool wind was blowing through the garden, wafting the scents of the many flowers over them, and for a moment he just listened to the rustle in the trees and the faint song of unseen birds._

 _"_ _You seem so tired, my child," Mother said, her face concerned. "Tell me what has happened to you."_

 _"_ _I went on my first mission, Mother."_

 _"_ _And what happened on this mission?"_

 _He told her about the experience — about how they had been betrayed and ambushed, and how he had fought and killed his way past his foes. Mother listened to every word intently, her deep, dark eyes growing sad as Raphael described what had happened to him, his fear of punishment by Master Shredder, and his relief when the jonin had praised him instead. When he finished, she looked down at the blossom held in her hands, and sighed._

 _"_ _What's wrong, Mother?" he asked, surprised by her sadness. "Did I say something wrong?"_

 _"_ _No, my son, you have said nothing wrong. I only worry for you, and for the dangers you are facing."_

 _"_ _Don't worry about me, Mother," Raphael reassured her. "I know how to take care of myself."_

 _"_ _You do know, my strong boy," Mother said, finally smiling again."When you have those who love you and protect you at your side, you will be invincible."_


	12. Chapter 12

"You seem more relaxed today, Raphael," Toshiro said thoughtfully, hefting a small smoke bomb in his hand. "The mission last night must have gone well for you."

"It was a mess, sensei," Raphael grunted, drawing back his arm to throw some small weighted balls. Toshiro-sensei had ordered him to learn how to throw properly before he could attempt the real thing. "But Master Shredder told me I fought well."

"Hmm," Toshiro said thoughtfully. "Is that the only reason you are in such a good mood?"

Raphael started to reply, but the words froze on his tongue. He had been on the verge of telling Toshiro about Mother, and his dreams of meeting her in the garden. That experience had settled his rattled nerves, and he had woken with a sense of peace that he hadn't experienced before — at least, not that he could remember. He had lain in his bed for awhile after waking up, remembering her soft voice and deep, dark eyes.

But for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to speak of her — even to his sensei. It felt like the illusion would dissolve if he mentioned that he was having dreams of a mother who couldn't possibly exist, and that she was the reason for his improved mood. So he shut his mouth firmly, and threw another weighted ball. Besides, he thought, Toshir0-sensei would probably think it was childish to dream of a mother he didn't even have.

"I had a — a good dream last night, sensei," he said at last. "It's nothin'."

Toshiro-sensei smiled slightly. "A dream about a woman, I suppose. You are very young, and the young often have vivid dreams," he said finally. Fortunately he did not ask what the dream had been about, and instead corrected Raphael's aim.

After the day's training was complete, Raphael showered and made his way to the dining hall, which was typically empty except for a small cluster of genin eating at a round table. They were speaking in hushed whispers, their eyes darting from face to face like conspirators.

Raphael frowned, and began moving towards the smaller table in the corner. But as he passed them, the word "Marino" floated past him, and he slowed down, his fingers tightening on the edges of his tray.

"… Rogers told me that Master Shredder already met with the don. He claimed that this Marino person acted without orders."

"Did he say why?"

"He said that Marino's nephew was killed by the Foot a few years ago, and he wants revenge. Some nonsense like that."

Raphael slid into one of the chairs at an adjoining table, and ducked his head down. He could hear them clearly now, and none of them seemed to notice his open eavesdropping — possibly because none of them thought enough of him to care.

"And all the others?"

"Others wanting revenge for past scuffles with the Foot. It was all a trap."

"What is Master Shredder demanding from them?"

"The tribute — the real tribute, plus Marino and all his followers. Alive, if possible."

One of the genin snorted. "They'll have to find him first. Even if the don is willing to give up one of his own, I bet Marino found a nice place to hide."

"The Foot can find him," a young woman with close-cropped black hair said. "He won't be able to hide for very long, especially with someone like Karai on his trail."

Raphael stared down at his plate, at the hamburger that was rapidly cooling there. His stomach clenched as he thought back to how he had almost gotten Marino — and even though Master Shredder hadn't been angry at him for the loss, he still felt the sting of his own failure, like a thorn embedded in his foot.

He still remembered Marino's mocking smile as he had departed, just after shooting at Raphael's face and barely missing. At least, he thought with a sense of bitter satisfaction, he had managed to strike the man with a shuriken before he got away. That was something, even if it wasn't much.

He snapped out of his thoughts just then, realizing that the conversation had fallen silent. The woman with the close-cropped hair was staring at him with an odd expression — half hostile, half frightened — while the man beside her was choking down his food as if he were trying to swallow everything on his plate whole. The others murmured amongst themselves, casting oblique sideways glances at Raphael that were meant to be unnoticed.

So they had noticed him there after all. Raphael wasn't sure which was worse — to be ignored completely, or to be noticed and shunned. He hunched over his lunch and lost himself in his thoughts as he ate, ignoring the whispers that floated between the others there.

They thought of him as a pet or a thing to be owned, and it bothered them when he did something of his own accord. They were wrong. One way or another, he would prove it — and he could do that by becoming a true ninja.

It haunted him as he made his way back to the dojo, his mind still seething with the previous night's events. There was only one thing he could think of that would help.

He burst through the dojo doors, and was surprised to see a thin figure kneeling in the middle of the floor.

"Sensei?" Raphael said, surprised.

Toshiro-sensei raised his bald head, and his dark brows lifted slightly. "Raphael? I thought you had left for the day."

"I did — but I came back," Raphael said. "I was thinkin' I would do some more practice today."

"Is there a reason for this?"

Raphael's eyes rose to meet his sensei's, a hint of defiance creeping into his gaze. "I—I wanna become a ninja as soon as I can," he said hesitantly. "I don't want to wait. I want to show 'em what I really am." His voice lowered. "And I wanna find Marino. I don't want to have failed the master."

Toshiro stroked his pointed beard, his eyes narrowing in thought. He studied Raphael for a moment — his clenched fists, his fierce gaze, the faint undercurrent of uncertainty in his voice — and sighed. Normally he would tell a potential ninja that "showing 'em" wasn't a good enough reason to embrace the life of a ninja. But Raphael had been destined for that life the moment the master had decided that he would be trained, and straying from that path could be lethal to them both.

For a moment, Toshiro wondered if he had done Raphael a disservice by not making it sufficiently clear that he had no choice in the matter — that Master Shredder controlled his destiny, his very life. He had been only a day old, mentally speaking, when his training began. He knew no other life. He knew no other fate. He didn't realize he was being trained not just as a ninja, but as a weapon.

"Very well," Toshiro said at last. "Normally I would say to a student that there is only so much training one can do in a day, that it cannot be forced too quickly or the training itself will suffer. But you —" He sighed. "You are not a normal student, Raphael. You learn too quickly for that to be true. So for an unusual student, I think unusual training methods will be used."

"Thank you, sensei."

"Don't thank me yet. This will be hard work, and you will have little time or energy for anything but training." The old man rose to his feet, and beckoned the turtle closer. "Let us begin."


	13. Chapter 13

The next few weeks passed in a blur. Raphael barely knew what day it was, or how many days of his accelerated training had passed — there was only the knowledge he had gained, the skills he had learned.

He woke early in the morning, just as the sun was rising, and charged into the dining hall, which was usually still swarming with the genin who undertook their missions at night. He no longer paid attention to the glances he received, or the way that voices dropped when he passed. All his thoughts were bent on his training, and on planning the next agility exercise, on the stealth, the flight of items thrown from his hand, the solid logs that he could smash to splinters easily with hands and feet.

Until the sun set in the evening, he spent his time in the dojo, training with a relentlessness that had been missing from his education before. He broke only a few times in order to feed himself, but always plunged right back into the training as soon as he could. When Toshiro-sensei finally told him to stop, it was dark outside.

His muscles ached with every day that dawned, dull throbbing pains deep in his body that were never allowed to fully heal. He was hungry more often, thirsty all the time. Often he was trembling when the day's activities were done, though he forced himself to soldier on through them.

From there, he made his way to the locker room and washed away the sweat and dust of another day's effort. He let the heat of the water soothe the tense knots in his muscles, groaning softly as it cascaded over him. He no longer noticed if the genin stared at him in the shower, too exhausted and too focused on cleaning his body.

Finally, he made his way to his room, and collapsed into his bed, falling asleep within seconds. Sometimes it happened so quickly that he didn't have time to remove his wraps, mask and belt.

And then there was Mother.

He dreamed of Mother almost every night now — her gentle smile, her soft voice, the garden where she always waited for him until he fell asleep. His worn body was finally able to rest as he visited her, and his frayed nerves began to settle as Mother spoke to him. Privately he wondered if he would have made it this far if it weren't for Mother soothing and comforting him every night.

There was something odd about these dreams, though — they felt real. Nothing strange or surreal happened. They never faded in or out from other dreams. Even when Raphael woke, he remembered the dreams perfectly — the conversations with Mother, the things he told her about his training, the scents of the flowers, the feel of the grass under his feet. It felt less like he was dreaming, and more like his soul traveled to another place when he slept.

But he didn't care. All he cared about was that Mother was there for him.

The only thing that confused him was how Mother reacted when he told her what he did every day. Her large dark eyes grew sadder, and often she fell silent as he described the techniques he was learning.

 _"_ _I wish you did not suffer so, my child," she said to him one night._

 _"_ _I need to," Raphael responded. "I need to be a ninja as soon as possible. I need to prove that I'm not a pet or a — a thing."_

 _She cradled his face in her hands. "I know. I know how important this is to you, my son. But you must always remember that those who truly care for you will not notice the vessel, only the spirit within. And to them, you will have nothing to prove."_

 _"_ _Yes, Mother," Raphael said faintly. But he didn't know how that was possible. He couldn't remember a time before the training, a time when he didn't have to prove he mattered to someone — to Master Shredder, to Toshiro-sensei, to the Foot…_

 _She drew him into her arms, resting his head against her breast, and gently stroked his face. "And you must remember that no matter what you do, I am always looking after you, my precious child. Always."_

* * *

"Now what?" Donatello said. He stood straight and alert on the edge of the rooftop, resting his hand on his bo staff as he looked out across the glittering city.

Leonardo followed his brother's gaze. He had been sitting on the edge of the rooftop, with the blade of one of his katanas resting across his thighs, admiring how it gleamed in the waning light of dusk.

It had been an eventful day — their father had left the night before, ordering them to go through their katas after breakfast, and continue until he returned. He had appeared sometime around the middle of afternoon, carrying a very large sports duffel bag full of things that clinked and jutted out awkwardly against the fabric.

The three turtles didn't have to wait long to find out what was inside. He had opened it nearly immediately, and handed them each weapons — Donatello had received a bo staff almost too long for the bag, Leonardo a pair of katanas meant to be sheathed on his back, and Michelangelo a pair of nunchaku. And with the weapons, he gave them a mission: they were to go out into the night, and find their long-lost fourth brother, lost and alone somewhere in New York's ugly streets.

Leo sheathed the sword, and stood up. "We find Raphael," he said at last.

"I dunno, man," Mikey said dubiously. "I mean, it's been months since Father saw him. After he mutated, he could have gone anywhere. Where are we supposed to even start lookin'?"

Leo didn't have an answer for him. The truth was, he knew nothing about Raphael, and remembered even less of him — he didn't know where he might have wandered, what kinds of places he might have gone to… or who might have either taken him in, or captured him as a freak or a lab rat.

He briefly wished that they knew a friendly human or two. It would be easier to find Raphael if they could ask around if anyone had seen a giant bipedal turtle-man — after all, people were unlikely to forget the mutant if they had seen him. The only problem was that they could only ask if they revealed themselves to the humans.

"We'll start in the alley where he was last," he said finally. "It's as good a place to start as any. From there we'll fan out and scout over the streets and alleys, checking everything that seems strange."

"I don't know," Donnie said, resting his bo across his shoulders. "It's been months, Leo. He could be anywhere by now."

"I know," Leo said. "But we still have to try."

They swiftly ran across the rooftops, jumping and soaring through the night air with ease. Their feet almost seemed to skim the concrete roofs, as though gravity had little effect on them. But they had gone barely three blocks when Mikey suddenly stopped, and peered down into an alley.

"What is it?" Leo said, swerving around. "Is it Raphael?"

"No, bro, it's some weird guy in a hockey mask," Mikey said, peering over the edge of the building. "He's fighting like five guys with guns down there. With a bat!"

"Mikey, we can't stop and —"

But his younger brother was already leaping down into the alley, his eyes alight at the idea of being a hero, like those from his treasured comic books. By the time Leo and Donnie reached him, it was too late — Mikey was sweeping through the alley along with the hockey-masked man, his nunchaku whirling like tiny cyclones.

"Okay, change of plans," Leo said grimly. "We stop the bad guys and extract Mikey, and then we find Raphael."

"At least we'll get something done tonight," Donnie said, gripping his bo.


	14. Chapter 14

"Again, Raphael!"

Toshiro-sensei's voice cracked like a whip in the confines of the dojo, and Raphael winced without meaning to. He signaled Toshiro-sensei with a raised finger, seized a bottle of water and poured the contents down his throat, save for a few dribbles that ran down his chin.

He wiped his mouth on his arm and tossed the bottle back at the bench, then fell back into the stance his sensei had been trying to drill into him for the last half hour. It didn't help, he thought darkly, that his limbs kept trembling from fatigue, and his training-hardened muscles felt as though someone had been beating him with a bat.

But he didn't complain. Not ever. Toshiro-sensei was only doing what Raphael had asked him — practically begged him — to do. He was turning Raphael into a ninja faster than any other student he had ever taught, as quickly as possible, faster than even Raphael's mutant body was prepared for. That had to come with some kind of pain. Raphael was willing to suffer it.

Toshiro-sensei circled around him, studying the stance. "Your left foot is still too far out, but this will suffice. Now attack."

Raphael remained still, as if he had heard nothing.

"I said at-"

Raphael's hand lashed out with almost dizzying speed, his torso rotating to aim his strike in the correct direction. Toshiro's eyes widened, and he barely moved aside in time, feeling Raphael's fingers brush his beard as he did so.

"Clever tactic," he said approvingly. "You nearly had me that time."

Raphael responded with a pained grunt. "But not good enough," he said through gritted teeth.

"Not yet, no."

But Toshiro's eyes fell to Raphael's sweat-slicked body, and the heavy tremor that ran through his arms as he tried to fall back into the stance again, grunting softly as he tried to force his muscles to do his bidding. The mutant turtle had been working almost constantly since dawn that morning, pushing himself through sword training, practice with his sai, stealth, hand-to-hand combat. Toshiro had even taken him to the medical clinic to learn how to suture a wound, in case he ever needed to do it to himself in the field.

But he could tell that his student was rapidly reaching his limit. The long days of constant training were wearing him down, and Toshiro had begun to fear that Raphael would make himself ill. He had agreed to push the mutant turtle through accelerated training, he reflected. But he had not agreed to let him harm himself.

"That is enough for today," Toshiro said at last, placing a hand on Raphael's shoulder.

Raphael looked up at him, confused. "Sensei? We still have half an hour left…"

"I know, but I am an old man and need my rest," Toshiro said, deftly substituting a true statement for his real motive. "We shall pick up again in the morning, when both of us have rested."

Breathing hard, Raphael bowed respectfully to his sensei, and walked gingerly over to the bench. He could hardly complain if Toshiro-sensei needed to break their day short — the old man had already done so much for him, and these accelerated days of training were consuming all of his time, Raphael suspected. He just hoped he would be able to make Toshiro-sensei proud.

In the meantime, muscles he didn't even know he had were aching, twinging as he settled himself down. He wondered how many more things he had to learn, and how long it usually took a ninja to be trained.

"Sensei," he said hesitantly.

Toshiro-sensei raised his brows. "Yes, Raphael?"

"Do you think Master Shredder will be pleased by me when I'm done with trainin'?"

Toshiro-sensei did not answer right away, instead folding a towel with excessive care. "I do not know of a reason for him to be displeased by you," he said at last. "He is a man of… high expectations, but I have seen nothing in your skills that indicates you would not live up to them." He settled on the bench beside Raphael, and looked off into space. "But those high expectations mean that obedience is expected in all things. As important as skill is, the dedication to one's clan and loyalty to one's master are also important — more important, sometimes — to survive in the Foot Clan. Do you understand?"

"I think so," Raphael said.

Toshiro sighed. "And you are not an ordinary ninja, Raphael. You never will be. Master Shredder is sure to treat you differently than others because of what you are, and that may sometimes be… difficult for you. Certain things may be expected of you."

"What does that mean?"

Toshiro let his head droop forward and rubbed his brow. "I cannot explain it to you now," he said quietly. "But one day, I think you will understand of what I speak."

He could feel without looking that Raphael was troubled, but knew there was nothing he could truthfully say to alleviate the youth's doubts. And lulling Raphael into a false sense of safety would be the worst crime of all, since his life would only become more dangerous when he became a full-fledged ninja. Toshiro could only hope that Raphael was strong enough when the time came.

* * *

Toshiro-sensei's words haunted Raphael's thoughts as he prepared himself for bed. His nightly routine had become longer since his training had intensified, since he often had to bandage the small cuts and scrapes that his combat practice left him with. This evening his left shoulder was the sorest spot — he had landed on it when Toshiro-sensei had knocked him over, and it had been bruised on the lip of his shell. It wasn't very each to disinfect and bandage either, since Raphael couldn't twist around.

He hissed softly as he taped another pad of gauze on a particularly nasty slice on his elbow, where his arm had caught on a bit of a broken shuriken lodged in the wall. He had kept fighting through the pain until the training exercise was over, feeling blood dripping down his arm.

"Very good," Toshiro-sensei had praised him afterwards. "In the field, it's likely you will be wounded in a fight but have to continue in order to survive. Being used to fighting through pain will be an asset."

Finally he finished bandaging up his injuries, and gingerly lowered himself onto his bed. Time for another meeting with Mother — he could leave his aching, exhausted body behind for a few hours, and tell her what he had learned that day.

His eyes wandered to the night sky outside his window, with a crescent moon hanging overhead. It popped into his head that when he had been snatched away from StockGen, there had been three other turtles with him, or so Master Shredder had told them.

"They were lost in a sewer, to be eaten by rats," he had said. "But you survived, Raphael. You lived where they did not, because your destiny was to be a warrior, a ninja."

Raphael had straightened when he heard that, and felt a surge of pride in his master's faith in him.

Still… Raphael sometimes found himself wondering about those three lost turtles, and what his life would have been like if they had survived and mutated with him. If they had been part of the Foot with him, if they had lived and trained and worked with him… if he weren't alone. If there were three other mutants to share training, missions and life with.

With a groan, he rolled onto his side and hugged the coverlet to his chest. He had to stop thinking this way. All it would do was make sleep more elusive, and he needed his sleep. He needed to be rested by the morning, before another day of training.

So he closed his eyes tightly, and tried to slow his breathing, until he felt the aches of his body slipping away, and the darkness creeping over his mind.

And then there was Mother.

 _"_ _What troubles you, my son?" she said softly, walking alongside him. A wind that didn't truly exist ruffled the sleeves of her kimono, and sent plum blossoms scattering across the path before them._

 _"_ _I don't know, Mother. I guess I'm just… lonely," Raphael said reluctantly. He hated to say it to Mother, given how she kept him company almost every night and listened to every word he spoke to her. But the loneliness was deep inside him, a pervasive bone-deep ache that never went away._

 _"_ _You are surrounded by people, and yet are lonely," she agreed sadly._

 _"_ _I wish there were other mutants in the Foot. I… I'm the only one, and maybe if there were others I wouldn't be seen as such a freak. Or at least I'd have someone to understand what it feels like."_

 _"_ _Is there no one whom you can call your friend, child?" Mother asked._

 _Raphael opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again. He had almost mentioned Toshiro-sensei, but he wasn't sure if one's sensei counted as a friend. "No one," he said at last. "Nobody like me."_

 _Mother's eyes grew darker and sadder as she contemplated this, and she placed her hand on Raphael's. "You will find others like yourself soon enough," she promised. "But you must be patient."_

* * *

"What exactly are you?"

Leo gritted his teeth, and wished for the ninth time in the last five minutes that Mikey had held back. They were all in plain sight, standing over the five unconscious men that they had managed to beat in only a few minutes, with a street light casting a dim glow over the entire alley. They had barely even started their quest for Raphael, and already they had screwed up.

The boy in front of them was in his late teens or early twenties, with a wide-eyed handsome face, a mess of dark hair, and a perplexed expression as he looked over the three strange figures before him. "Are you guys… turtles?" he said quizzically.

"Uh-huh," Mikey said cheerfully.

He seemed to digest this new information, then smiled broadly and held out his fist towards Mikey. The youngest turtle bumped his own fist against it. "Name's Casey Jones, and I appreciate the help," he said amiably. "I got a little in over my head."

Well, there was no help for it now, Leo reflected, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. Maybe if they were very lucky, this guy wouldn't cause any more trouble for them — the last thing they needed was for StockGen or Old Hob to get news of their whereabouts. "Why did those guys attack you?" he asked.

"Attack me?" Casey said blankly. "They didn't. I attacked them." He gestured to the bag on his back, containing a few bats and golf clubs, as if it were obvious.

Leo's eyes widened, then narrowed. "What?" he said.

"They broke into the pawn shop across the street just as I showed up," Casey explained. "So I was tryin' to stop 'em… and you guys showed up. Which was pretty awesome, especially with the swords."

"That is awesome," Mikey said admiringly. "You're kind of like a superhero, except you have bats instead of superpowers."

Casey grinned. "You know it."

The headache was there now, throbbing behind Leonardo's brow like a tiny hand drum. He pressed his fingers to his forehead and massaged it as best he could, but he could tell this headache wasn't going away anytime soon.

"So what are you guys doing out here at this time of night?" Casey said, as if he expected giant talking turtles to be wandering the streets during the day.

"That's-" Leo started to say.

But Mikey interjected, "We're out looking for our brother Raphael. He's been missin' for months and months, and now we gotta find him and bring him home."

"Which is what we're supposed to be doing now," Leo said sternly, casting a look at his baby brother. Mikey, for his part, seemed blissfully unaware of his eldest brother's mood.

Casey's brow crinkled, and he looked slowly at the three green faces surrounding him. "I might be able to help you guys, if you're okay with that," he said. "I know this 'hood like the back of my hand, and I got some connections that might help find someone who's missing."

Leo started to ask if that was possible, especially when the person being searched for was a giant turtle. But then his previous thoughts flashed through his mind, making him uncomfortably aware that Casey Jones might be the answer to their prayers. He had been lamenting that they didn't know a human who could go places they couldn't… and here was one willing to help them. Father, he reflected, would call it destiny.

"Okay," Leo said at last.


	15. Chapter 15

"He is ready."

The words echoed through the dojo, and shivered through Raphael's bones like the chiming of a great bell. He remained kneeling on the mat, his head bowed humbly and his heart racing in his chest. This was the moment he had been waiting for.

"I have taught him all I know how to teach," Toshiro-sensei continued, walking past his student. "He has learned to fight as few in the Foot could hope to equal, and has been trained in stealth, in strategy, in the use of all our weapons. He is now a fully-fledged ninja, with dedication second to none."

Master Shredder was silent, and Raphael felt himself sweating as he waited for his master to say something — anything — to indicate what he was thinking. But he didn't dare look up, for fear that he would see something he wouldn't like there. So he kept his eyes fixed firmly on his knees, and tried to keep from shaking.

"You told me that Raphael required two months' training," Master Shredder said at last. "It has only been three weeks. I would not have him be a ninja who is insufficiently learned."

"Raphael has shown remarkable dedication to his training during those three weeks," Toshiro-sensei said, kneeling beside his student on the tatami mat, and placing one hand on Raphael's shell. "He has done little else besides tirelessly work, in his eagerness to be of service to his master. In this way, he was able to complete his training in far less time than I originally estimated."

Shredder was silent again, and Raphael could feel his eyes watching him intently. Then a calloused finger hooked under his chin, tilting his head up to look Shredder in the eyes. He couldn't tell with the mask on, but he thought the jonin looked satisfied.

"Well done, Toshiro," he rumbled. "I am pleased with what you have made of him."

"You honor me, master," Toshiro-sensei said, bowing slightly. "But the credit for the work should go to Raphael. I merely guided him."

"And now this sword may be unsheathed at last," Shredder mused, removing his hand from Raphael's chin. "What now, Toshiro?"

The old man stroked his beard. "I will be returning to the genin training facility in Westchester County tomorrow, master. They have need of me there."

Raphael's heart nearly stopped, and his stomach gave a sudden painful lurch inside him. His mind raced through his teacher's words frantically, as if trying to parse some alternate meaning from them. Toshiro-sensei leaving…. he hadn't foreseen that that was going to happen. He had only seen the end of his training as the beginning of his life as a ninja, as an opportunity to prove his worth to all around him. He hadn't dreamed that it would mean his sensei would be leaving him.

He could only remember a brief, hazy sliver of his life in which Toshiro had not been teaching him, guiding him, molding him. Every day since had been spent with the old man. No other person had been such a fixture in his short life. If Toshiro-sensei was gone…. who would he have left?

He would be alone.

Master Shredder didn't seem to notice his distress. He simply nodded in response to Toshiro's statement, and swept out of the room, with the Elite following him like ghosts.

Toshiro-sensei waited for the doors to close before sighing. "You must have known this was coming, Raphael," he said quietly.

"Yes—no—" Raphael swallowed hard. "I didn't think you were goin'… this soon," he finally said.

"I have other students to teach," Toshiro said, placing a hand on the turtle's shoulder. "I was called away from them to give you my undivided expertise, but now I have taught you everything you will need to know — everything to do with being a ninja, that is. There is no reason for me to be here any longer."

Raphael remained silent, his head hung low. He knew that everything his teacher said was true, but he still felt that painful ache of loneliness growing inside him like a cramp. He had lamented that he was alone before, but now with Toshiro-sensei gone, he would have no one to guide him.

"Westchester County is not so far away," Toshiro-sensei added. "If Master Shredder allows it, perhaps you may visit me from time to time."

"I'd… like that," Raphael said faintly.

"Come now," Toshiro-sensei said, pulling Raphael to his feet. "I have many farewells to make before tomorrow morning. But for now, spend some time with your old teacher."

* * *

The next morning was a cold and gray one, with a fine mist settled over the streets. A sleek black car pulled out to the front of the Foot Clan headquarters, with a small suitcase already placed in the back seat.

Karai was already waiting by the car when Toshiro and Raphael descended in the elevator. As she often did when there was nothing to criticize, she ignored Raphael completely, stepping past him to greet their sensei. But she turned to Toshiro with an unexpected smile — a genuine smile, Raphael saw, not the mocking smirks or malicious grins she had aimed at him occasionally. He hadn't even known Karai was capable of that.

As they spoke in Japanese — a language he didn't understand more than a handful of words in — Raphael stared down at his toes, feeling his stomach sink as though he had swallowed a lead weight. It was hard for him to believe that in just a few minutes, Toshiro-sensei would be gone. He felt unmoored, aimless, even though he knew exactly where he would be going and what he would be doing once the old man had left.

His hands clutched anxiously together. His mind flew to the previous night — he had poured his heart out to Mother about the impending departure of his teacher, and the loneliness that was seeping through his being. She had listened to every word, and assured him, _"You are not alone, my son. You do not know them yet, but there are those who will embrace you for who you are. You merely have to find them."_

He hoped she was right. Right now, he felt more alone than ever.

Toshiro-sensei finally finished speaking with Karai, and turned to face Raphael. "I have never had a student quite like you, Raphael," he said with a small smile. "You are a natural ninja, and I expect nothing but great accomplishments from you." His smile faltered. "Be careful as you follow your path, my student, wherever it leads."

"Yes, sensei," Raphael said, bowing slightly.

He watched in silence as the car pulled away from the building, feeling a wrench in his chest. It vanished around the corner, and the tail-lights faded away.

When Raphael turned around, he found that Karai was already gone — presumably she hadn't wanted to deal with him once Toshiro-sensei was gone. He walked slowly into the building and rode the elevator to a particular floor, feeling apprehension fluttering in his stomach like an angry moth.

He didn't know why he was so nervous. He had been eagerly anticipating this day for weeks, the day when he would finally take his place as a member of the Foot Clan, and have the opportunity to prove that he was worthy of it. He should be happy. But instead he felt…. empty. His chest felt cavernous and strangely numb, and he felt oddly apathetic to what was happening to him now.

That morning he had been awoken by a message from Master Shredder, instructing him to come to his throne room immediately after Toshiro-sensei's departure. As Raphael stepped inside, he straightened his shoulders and tried to scrub any hint of doubt or nervousness from his face. His eyes flickered over the two Elite waiting by the door, but they gave no sign that they had noticed his presence.

"Raphael," Master Shredder said, settling back in his chair. "You are ready at last to serve the Foot." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, Master," Raphael said, clasping his hands behind his back.

Master Shredder swept his arm to his left, on the opposite side of Karai. Raphael's eyes flickered over to the woman standing at his right, and the expression of frozen disinterest locked on her features. Then he moved to his master's side, and turned his shell to the wall.

This was his place now.


	16. Chapter 16

It took nearly a week for Raphael to get used to the new rhythm of his life — twice he went to the dojo out of sheer habit, only to remember once he had arrived that he no longer met Toshiro-sensei there. Once he had stood in the middle of the room for nearly half an hour, listening to the silence and wondering what to do next.

Other parts of his life were nearly unchanged. He ate in the dining hall, doing his best to ignore hushed voices and odd stares, and trained in the dojo, heading to the locker room to wash afterwards. But for the most part, he spent much of his time during the day attending Master Shredder. The jonin seemed content to keep Raphael at his side, which made Raphael feel slightly confused and discontented. He wanted to be out on the rooftops, in the wind, under the moon, hunting down Marino and other enemies of the Foot.

It took his nearly two weeks to summon up the courage to tell Master Shredder of his discontent, and his desire to prove himself.

"Patience, Raphael," Shredder had said, when he finally blurted it out. He seemed amused by Raphael's discomfort, and by his eagerness to actively serve his clan. "I am not inclined to waste your strength and special qualities on an ordinary mission. You will have your chance soon enough."

Raphael accepted this answer, though he wasn't satisfied by it. The other Foot ninja still whispered that he was practically a pet, a curiosity that the jonin had taken a fancy to. Staying at Master Shredder's side all day didn't exactly disprove that idea.

So he found other ways to fight his discontent. Often at night, Raphael would slip out of the headquarters and make his way across the rooftops of New York, enjoying the momentary freedom it brought. He loved the feeling of the cold breeze on his face, the steel of his sai in his hands, and the rough concrete and brick under his bare feet. Save for his visits with Mother, it was the best feeling he had experienced, and the closest thing he had felt to being a true ninja.

But someone had apparently noticed him walking out, because after a few nights of roaming by himself, he spotted dark figures following him as he ran. They weren't able to keep up with him, but when he stopped for a while, they also stopped and waited for him to move again. They seemed content to watch him from afar, observing but not interfering.

Raphael gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. He wasn't sure why he was being followed — it wasn't as if he was likely to run away. Where else was he going to go? The Foot was his home, his family, his entire life. It was the same with the guards who still stood outside his bedroom every night, even though he was now one of them. He wasn't a prisoner, but one of the Foot… so why was he watched and guarded so closely?

He thought about shaking them off, which he could do easily if he just ran fast enough, but decided against it. He didn't want to risk angering Master Shredder by evading something he had ordered. So he turned his shell towards the two ninja following him, and leaped onto another rooftop.

It was then he heard a muffled scream.

Something inside him prickled at the sound, and he felt his face shifting into a snarl. He didn't know who had made that sound, but he was suddenly seized by the desire to stop whatever had caused it.

Another scream — this one turning into a sob — sounded from somewhere nearby, and Raphael's eyes flicked from building to building, trying to figure out where it had come from. Finally he heard the sounds of a struggle, and followed them to a wide alley that looked out on a busy street, crouching on the edge of the rooftop as he surveyed what was going on.

A young woman was standing in that alley, her dark features stained with tears that glinted in the moonlight. Two men — skinny, pasty and strung-out-looking — were crowded around her, too close for her obvious comfort, and Raphael caught the gleam of a knife in the hand of one of them. The other one was clutching a purse — presumably, Raphael thought, belonging to the woman.

"Please," the woman was babbling, "please don't come any closer. I swear I don't have any more—"

"Empty out yer pockets," the man holding the knife ordered, jabbing it at her.

Raphael's lip curled. He glanced over at the pedestrians walking in the street nearby — no one seemed to hear the woman screaming, or perhaps they just didn't care. Certainly none of them seemed inclined to help.

He glanced over his shoulder at the two ninja following him. Then he plunged down into the alley below, his sai already out and gleaming in his hands. The woman uttered another shriek as she saw a dark figure hurtling down from the rooftop, with what appeared to be a large knife clutched in each hand. She cowered against the wall, shielding her face with her hands.

Raphael caught the first of the muggers with a kick to the head, sending the weedy figure stumbling straight into a wall. He slumped to the ground, blood trickling from a cut on his head. The other — the one with the knife — cursed and swiped at Raphael, but he was easily able to dodge such weak, predictable slashes. After letting the man have a few seconds to try to defend himself, Raphael swiped upward with his sai, sending the knife spinning off into the dark alley.

"Try gettin' a real job," he snapped.

Then he buried his fist in the mugger's gut, before driving it upward into the underside of the man's chin. The human was unconscious before he hit the filthy pavement.

Raphael stood there for a moment, looking down on the bodies of the two men he had just beaten. He hadn't even worked up a sweat — while he knew that he had improved drastically in his fighting skills, and was more than a match for nearly anyone in the Foot, he hadn't realized that he was good enough that ordinary people were so easy to beat. He could have fought both of those losers in his sleep.

Then he remembered the woman, who was still cowering against the wall, trembling wildly. As he stared, she peered between her splayed hands, gazing at him with wide, frightened eyes.

Raphael sank back into the shadows, letting them enfold him and hide him from the woman's sight. He didn't know how much she had seen before that — hopefully not enough to realize that her rescuer was a giant turtle dressed as a ninja — but he knew that he had better leave before she started screaming again. Which she would almost certainly do when she saw his green skin, his shell, his decidedly not-human face.

"Th-tha-thank you," the woman quavered.

Good. She probably hadn't seen him clearly, or she probably would have cried out and run. Raphael turned and leaped up to the rooftop, feeling the woman's eyes follow him as he went. He began moving back in the direction of the Foot's headquarters, his eyes darting towards the two small figures running in the distance.

But he felt better than he had in days, ever since Toshiro-sensei had left. Finally, until Master Shredder gave him a mission to fulfill, he had something he could do.


	17. Chapter 17

His nightly outings soon became a matter of habit, roaming over rooftops in search of criminals caught in the act — a stray child being kidnapped, women being assaulted, purses being snatched, drug deals gone sour. He descended on the ones responsible like a whirlwind, his sai and his fists lashing out before they had a chance to even scream. Then, before anyone could get a good look at the shadowy figure — certainly before they could see his face — he vanished again into the night.

Raphael didn't know if the two ninja who followed him every night told Master Shredder everything he did, or whether they were just there to make sure he didn't vanish into the depths of the city. But if they did tell Shredder what Raphael did — if they even realized what exactly he was doing — the jonin didn't seem to care.

And that was a relief to Raphael. There was something about beating down petty criminals that seemed to lift a burden from his heart — it wasn't much of a challenge of his skills, but it made him feel like he was accomplishing something. It felt… right.

And it had made Mother happy when he told her. She had smiled and told him, _"I am proud of you, my son. Your strength is a gift to you and to those you help."_ Raphael wasn't entirely sure what she meant, though — even though she was only a dream, sometimes she said things that seemed to clash with what he had always known to be true. Master Shredder had always taught him that strength and power were the only things to strive for, not gifts for others. That made no sense.

He landed lightly on a wide windowsill and crouched down, peering out across the street for signs of anything amiss. The moonlight glittered on the layer of summer rain on the dark asphalt, and caught on the open windows on the upper levels of the buildings below. The place was mostly deserted this time of night, but he could see couples clinging close as they walked to and from restaurants, families roaming the streets together, the occasional lone person walking quickly to their car.

A flutter of motion caught Raphael's eye — something in the alley down the street. Someone was lurking there, watching the people walking by. Probably a mugger. A smile crossed his face as he spun one of his sai in his hand.

It had been almost six months since Toshiro-sensei had left New York City, both more slowly and more quickly than Raphael had known time could pass. He had now spent more time as a trained ninja than he had as a student, but at the same time it felt as though little had happened during that time.

He had been sent in some missions in those six months, but only a handful — and only ones where it was anticipated that there would be a need to fight, where only a spark was needed to kindle violence. Each time, Raphael had carved his way through walls of enemies, putting his fighting skills and his bloodied sai to good use. He had trained for stealth but never seemed to use it — he was good at fighting and got a kind of savage joy out of it, but he felt as though he wasn't being used to his full potential.

But it was frustrating to him that Master Shredder sent him out so rarely. For the most part, he remained at Shredder's side nearly every day, a green shadow lurking behind the master's throne. Most of his days were spent there, following Master Shredder and doing his immediate bidding.

His thoughts of discontent flew out of his head as he saw someone cross the street, moving toward the alley — a small woman in shorts and a tank top, jingling her car keys in her hand, her purse swinging over her hip. The shadowy figure in the alley moved slightly, creeping closer as she approached. A hand was raised — something gleamed in the dark —

"Raphael?"

Raphael leaped as soon as he heard the voice, soaring over the parked cars and toward the alley. He swiped the gun from the mugger's hand with his sai and sent it flying against the wall with a clatter, then landed his fist in the man's unshaven, sweaty face.

The woman shrieked, though Raphael wasn't sure if she was screaming at him or just because two guys were suddenly fighting a few steps away.

The guy staggered back a few steps, his eyes unfocused from the sudden attack, but rallied and fumbled in his pocket for another weapon — probably a switchblade or something like that, Raphael reflected. He didn't have the opportunity to find out, because he easily pinned the man's arm behind his torso, and smashed his head against the brick wall beside him. The mugger crumpled to the ground like a withered leaf.

Raphael slipped the sai back into his belt, and glanced around himself. The woman was long gone — probably back in her car, hyperventilating in a panic. But he had nearly forgotten about her now.

He felt rather than saw two dark shapes landing lightly in the alley behind him, their faces hidden behind black masks except for their eyes. Probably the two ninja who had been tailing him for months, he thought sourly.

"Raphael," one of them said in measured tones. "Master Shredder commands you to return."

Raphael's heart leaped into his throat. For a moment he watched the two warily for some sign of further explanation, but they gave none. They merely stood and watched him in silence.

"Okay, I'm goin'," he said at last.

He sprang up onto a rusty fire escape, then up to the rooftop above. The two ninja were following him on fast, silent feet, and he could hear the faint thumps of their landings as they sprang and leaped behind him.

His mind was whirling with questions as he headed back towards the Foot Clan's headquarters, the summer wind whipping the tails of his mask back from his face. Master Shredder must know of his nightly outings — after all, he had sent guards to follow him — but perhaps he had only just learned what Raphael did on them. Perhaps he disapproved of what he had been doing — perhaps he didn't want Raphael to risk exposing himself to those outside the Foot, especially for the weaker humans who were of no use to the clan.

His stomach churned with nervousness, and for a moment he suspected he was going to throw up. Instead he threw his energy into running faster than before, finishing his run with a flying leap down to the sidewalk directly in front of the headquarters. Behind the wide, glittering glass doors, he could see swarms of ninja in the lobby, armed to the teeth and standing in small squads and formations.

And Master Shredder was there too.

Raphael walked inside gingerly, glancing at the ninja milling through the place, some of them following Karai out of the elevator. It looked like he had been wrong — it looked more like some kind of crisis had arisen, not like Master Shredder was upset over someone's nightly outings.

His confusion must have been evident on his face, because his master turned and beckoned him closer. Raphael clutched the handles of his sai, and listened anxiously for what was coming.

"Raphael, I have good news for us all," Master Shredder intoned. "Karai's efforts have finally allowed us to locate a certain treacherous enemy — one you failed to capture when you last encountered him." A hint of judgement crept into his voice, and Raphael heard the echo of an unspoken order: _This will not happen again._ "You will be part of the strike force to capture him — alive, for my purposes — and bring him to me. Kill the others."

A wolfish smile crossed Raphael's face, and he quickly bowed. "Master, I won't fail you this time."

"See that you do not."


	18. Chapter 18

"Do you think Casey is going to bring back any news?" Mikey asked, dangling his legs off the side of the building.

"Maybe," Donnie said, spinning his bo idly in his hand. "I mean, there's a fairly good chance it's Raphael. How many green reptilian men can there be in one city, after all?"

Leo said nothing, standing silently with his arms crossed over his chest, listening for the telltale sound of footsteps below. Casey Jones had been gone for a few hours, which hopefully meant that he had encountered Raphael — or even just a sign of where he might be.

Of course, Leonardo hated to think of what would have happened if the person they had heard of was actually Raphael. They had gotten wind of a freak show that was advertising "The Last Turtle Man of Atlantis," supposedly a creature that was half human and half turtle, and had asked Casey to investigate it. It made Leo shudder to imagine a brother of his being treated as a sideshow freak, being gawped at just to survive. If the Turtle Man was Raphael, then the sooner they brought him home, the better.

Still, he was grateful to Casey for doing this. It made searching for Raphael a lot easier to have a human friend who could casually walk into places and ask questions. If they hadn't, they would have had to break into the freak show when everyone was on display, and try to catch a glimpse of the Turtle Man then.

In fact, Leo was grateful to Casey in general, for helping them with their inquiries. Initially, he had been horrified when Mikey had introduced himself to the young man in the hockey mask, seemingly throwing all rules of secrecy and safety out the window. They had already been found out by the pizza boy Woody Dirkins, and he had kept their secret — but Leo wasn't confident that every human they encountered would be so considerate. If Mikey kept doing this, sooner or later there would be disaster.

But it had paid off, in the end. Casey had developed a rapport with the youngest turtle after that evening, finding Mikey's enthusiasm and friendliness endearing, and had been helping them search for Raphael ever since — helping three strange mutants find the brother they had never even seen, without complaint or hope of reward. Leonardo wanted to find a way to thank Casey for helping them, but he didn't know how.

No, he knew how, he thought grimly. Casey turned up with too many black eyes and bruises from his father for Leo not to know. But he also didn't know how to approach the subject.

"There he is!" Mikey yelped, scrambling back from the edge.

A dark-haired figure appeared in the alley below them, moving swiftly to the nearest fire escape. He clambered up it with a clatter of sneakers on rusty metal, and sprang up to meet an excited Mikey.

"So, was it him? Was it Raphael?" he asked eagerly.

Casey sighed, and the slump of his shoulders told Leo everything he needed to know.

"Sorry, guys. I managed to talk the manager into letting me see the Turtle Man after the show, and he looks nothing like you guys. Far as I can see, he's just a human with a weird skin condition that makes him look a little reptilian. His shell is fake."

"Well, thank you for trying," Leo said, trying not to let his disappointment seep too far into his voice.

"Don't sweat it, guys," Casey said. "We're gonna find your brother sooner or later. Somebody's gotta have seen a guy with green skin and a shell squatting somewhere in New York, or at least heard of one."

"Maybe we should put up posters," Mikey said thoughtfully. "You know, like missing person posters."

"We don't have a picture of Raphael," Donnie pointed out.

"We could use a picture of one of us. Humans don't think we look too different."

Before Leo could absolutely forbid missing person posters, something caught his eye — something in the distance, moving swiftly across the rooftops. He crouched down quickly, so that only the top half of his head could be seen above the low brick wall that ran around the top of the building.

"What are you doing?" Mikey asked.

"Get down and be quiet," Leo ordered.

The other three followed his example without question, peering out at the dark shape moving across the roofs — no, many dark shapes moving together. They were leaping from one building to another with a swiftness and agility Leo had never seen outside of himself and his brothers. His eyes widened, and for a moment he was tempted to go closer, see what a crowd of people were doing running on the roofs at night.

"Where do you think they're goin'?" Mikey said curiously.

* * *

Raphael's blood felt like it was infused with fire. He grinned at nothing in particular as he vaulted from one rooftop to the next, excitement growing inside him until he felt like it would burst out of his chest. He hadn't felt this way in months — like something he was doing for the Foot Clan would actually matter, like his strength and skills were being put to some useful purpose. He relished every moment of it — even Karai's presence couldn't dampen the pleasure of the experience.

He glanced over his shoulder at the swarms of Foot ninja following in his wake, their footsteps light and quick enough that nobody in the buildings under them would be able to hear. Then Raphael ducked his head down and t00k another flying leap to the next building, deftly avoiding an ancient wooden awning that quavered under his weight.

"The first squad will cover the rear and eliminate anyone who tries to escape," Karai barked. "The second will cover the front, and the third will enter through the roof."

Raphael smiled. He had been assigned to the third squad — presumably because he could jump down farther than anyone else there. Either that, or Karai was hoping that by sending him in first, he would be shot during the first incursion. He was fairly sure it was one of those reasons.

The moon hung low over the old industrial district as the ninja approached an old factory, silent and dark as shadows. The factory had seen its final days long ago, with red brick walls that were crumbling in places, broken windows that stared like eyeless sockets, and boarded-up doors that had been eaten away by termites. It was a ruin that looked as though it was barely holding itself up.

It also was clearly occupied, judging by the faint lights shining through the broken windows.

Karai made a sharp gesture in the direction of the high peaked roof of the factory, her face stark and cold in the moonlight. Raphael didn't need to be told a second time — he vaulted down to the ground, and darted across the shadowy ground, before leaping up to the factory's metal roof. It was rusty and fragile, and he had to step carefully to avoid having it collapse under his weight.

As the other third squad members darted up behind him, he glanced back as more ninja streamed across the weed-strewn yard around the factory. They were almost unnervingly silent as they moved — no clatter of footsteps, no whispered words. Raphael felt a chill run through him, and enjoyed the sensation. Was this what normal ninja missions were always like? If it was, he wished he had gone on one months ago.

"There's the signal," one of the other ninja whispered. "We're to attack now!"

Raphael felt a grin cross his lips, pulled the sai from his belt, and let himself fall shell-first through the nearest skylight.


	19. Chapter 19

The dirty glass shattered the moment he touched it, falling in cracked shards to the concrete floor below. As he dove through the broken window, Raphael caught a glimpse of dozens of men down below, staring with astonished expressions at the giant turtle hurtling toward them. He twisted his body in mid-air, tucking in his arms and legs as he fell, and braced himself for the landing before his feet struck a table littered with cards and chips.

For a moment, the factory was silent. The humans around Raphael stared with saucer-like eyes, too dumbfounded to say or do anything. Which was the effect he had intended.

"It's him!" one of the men shouted. Gray-streaked black hair, expensive suit, an ugly ragged scar over one cheekbone. Marino. "That mutant Foot freak! Kill him! _Kill him!"_

Raphael lashed out with his sai before a single gun could be drawn, and one of the men collapsed with blood bubbling from his throat. The sound of more glass shattering broke through the sound of Marino's screams. More black-clad figures leaped down into the factory or slid down grappling lines, their katanas already drawn and ready to be soaked in blood.

Bullets began flying — and only some of them were aimed at Raphael, with most being fired at the other ninja leaping or sliding down from the ceiling. He stabbed another one of Marino's henchman as the man charged at him with a knife, bellowing something incomprehensible, and then whirled to face a sweaty-faced underling who was aiming a gun directly at his face. He barely kicked the arm aside before the gun fired, and smashed his fist into the shooter's jaw.

Screams arose from the outside of the factory — high wailing shrieks, along with the loud, wet, thick sounds of swords slashing human flesh. Some of Marino's men had tried to flee, but had instead encountered Karai and some of her ninja.

"Freak!" a behemoth of a man roared, swinging a hamlike fist at Raphael's head. The turtle ducked it easily, and jammed his sai into the wrist bones with a loud crunching noise. It would have been a sickening sound if he had time to actually think about it.

The giant bellowed in pain and staggered backward, his eyes full of mingled outrage and shock that Raphael had hurt him so effortlessly. Raphael took the opportunity to kick the man's knee sideways, which caused him to scream again and stumble, his leg bending at an odd angle. Another ninja came flying towards him, and with a loud swish of his sword, the behemoth's head fell with a thud.

But Raphael didn't care about that anymore. He wanted Marino.

His eyes moved quickly to where Marino had been standing a few minutes ago, screaming orders at his men as he backed away from the combat himself. Raphael charged to that spot, and turned slowly to survey the rooms beyond the main floor. There were plenty of places in this old rat-trap for someone to hide — crevices, old storage facilities, pieces of rusted equipment lying around in old crates, shadows falling from half-ruined walls.

With a bloodied sai in each hand, Raphael prowled through the darkened rooms, listening for the faintest sound, watching for the slightest motion. Thin shafts of pale light shone through the broken windows, casting a whitish glow on the brick floor under Raphael's feet. He turned his head this way and that, sweeping the area for any signs of life.

But there was nothing. Frustration bubbled up inside him, and he clutched his sai even more tightly. Marino seemed to have evaporated into thin air, but that simply wasn't possible. Both the front and the back were covered, so he couldn't have gotten out that way. And he definitely wasn't in the main room — which was still alight with guns and flashing swords, judging by the shrieks and bangs Raphael could hear in the distance. Where had he gone?

His eyes flew down to a metal hatch in the floor. The sewers. He was desperate enough to try to escape that way, Raphael reflected.

He seized the ring on the hatch and heaved it up, setting it down carefully rather than letting it fall. He didn't want Marino to hear it clanging, and realize that someone was on to him.

He slithered down a short metal ladder that led into the darkness below, until he felt his feet touch a brick walkway, which was slimy with rainwater and rot. Something squeaked and ran over his foot, almost making him jump out of his shell.

"Rats," he muttered. "Stupid rats."

He ran swiftly through the tunnel, doing his best to keep from splashing the stagnant water as he did so. His eyes soon adjusted to the dark, and he could see the outlines of the tunnel's end, the murky passages just beyond, and the faint gleams of light shining through the holes in a manhole cover. Just enough light that he could make his way through instead of blindly groping in the dark.

He could also hear breathing. Hoarse, desperate breathing.

Raphael dropped into a crouch as he moved closer to the sound, his hands grasping his sai. He had to take the man alive — Master Shredder had ordered it — but he might have to hurt him first. Marino was desperate, and a desperate man was hard to catch, because he would do anything to evade his fate.

It wasn't long before Raphael caught a glimpse of Marino — a thin, grayish figure crouched at a junction between two sewer tunnels. He could see Marino's hair was disheveled — and much grayer than it had been seven months ago — and his eyes were glittering in the faint light. His face looked so thin it was almost skeletal, and the scar on his cheek stood out lividly. As Raphael stepped closer, he saw that Marino had a large bloodstain on his left thigh — presumably one of his men had hit him by accident, since Raphael hadn't done anything to him.

He raised one of his sai, letting Marino take in the sight. He had been ordered to bring him in alive, but the human didn't know that.

"Diavolo," Marino spat. "So you chased me down to kill me, mutant? Go ahead. I'm not afraid of you."

"You should be," Raphael said grimly. "I'm the one with the weapons."

Marino bared his teeth. Raphael was about to come closer when he saw something glint in the man's hand, and saw his fingers closing around it. He pointed a sai at Marino's face, hoping the man wasn't as stupid as he was acting.

"Don't try nothin'," he ordered.

"Or what? You'll kill me?" the human sneered.

The gun came up in a flash, and a blast of white fire erupted from the muzzle. Raphael dodged just as the bullet grazed past his face, and exploded a brick directly behind his head.

Gritting his teeth, he surged forward and caught the gun barrel between the prongs of his sai, wrenching it from Marino's grasp. The man groped desperately for it, but Raphael stepped back and away from him, his hands pulling the gun's cylinder open and allowing the bullets to fall to the sewer floor. Marino stared in shock for a moment, almost slack-jawed, but then his face hardened into a defiant mask.

"You might as well kill me, monster," Marino snarled. "I won't submit to that psychopath you serve."

"You don't speak like that about my master," Raphael said, touching the tip of his sai to Marino's throat, and pressing just hard enough to dent his skin. "Ever. Got it? Now face the wall."

"So you can stab me in the back, coward?"

"Do it now, or I make you do it."

Marino seemed to consider the option, and slowly rose on his injured leg, turning to face the slimy brick wall behind him. Raphael felt a rush of satisfaction at the sight. He slipped his sai back into his belt, and pulled something else from one of the pouches — a length of strong, thin cord that Marino would need to chew his arms off to escape. He whipped it around the man's wrists as quickly as possible lest he try something, pulled it tight, knotted it.

"He brings death to everything he touches," Marino said darkly. "He'll bring death to you too."

"Shut up," Raphael snapped, and dragged the bound human back the way he had come.


	20. Chapter 20

Raphael could feel every eye in the old factory looking at him — and for once, he didn't mind at all.

The Foot contingent were spread out across the weedy concrete yard before the factory; many of the ninja were cleaning their bloodied swords or nursing bullet wounds. A few black vans had pulled up nearby, ready to transport any severely wounded individuals back to the Foot headquarters for immediate treatment.

And of course, to transport Marino.

Raphael pushed the captured man ahead of himself, keeping a tight grip on the cord that bound his hands behind his back. A path had cleared itself through the small sea of black-clad ninja, who parted as they saw their target being marched toward the vehicles. And as they passed, Raphael could feel everyone watching him — realizing that he had captured Marino singlehanded, the whole point of the mission.

It sent a delicious thrill through Raphael. They were seeing that he had earned the right to stand alongside them, and be seen as being a true ninja, not Shredder's pet mutant. They were seeing that he could hold his own.

Marino was cursing and snarling in both Italian and English as Raphael dragged him towards the nearest van. One of the nearby ninja pulled the side door open. When Marino dug his heels into the gravelly ground, Raphael gritted his teeth and gripped the man by the belt, hoisting him an inch or so off his feet. With a loud grunt, he tossed Marino into the van, a spidery mass of limbs covered in blood-spattered Armani.

Raphael glanced briefly over his shoulder at the still-silent ninja watching him, their eyes still taking in the strength he had shown. Then he climbed into the van with his prisoner, and sat silently in the back seat.

Most of the Foot ninja would return the way they had come, but a few rode in the vans with Raphael and Marino. One of them was Karai, although thankfully she chose a different van to ride in. Her expression was stony, but at least she kept any criticisms or predictions to herself.

And Raphael could feel that the scrutiny of the other Foot ninja had not diminished during the ride. Though no one said a word to him — or to each other — he was acutely aware that they were acutely aware of him. A scrap of hope began to build inside him, hope that they were reconsidering what they had believed about him all along.

The vans swerved towards the headquarters, and drew up in front of the entrance. Karai sprang from the passenger seat of one of the vans and swiftly made her way inside — presumably, Raphael thought, to try to minimize his accomplishment before Marino was even in the building. He still had no idea why the woman hated him so much. Granted, she seemed to hate everyone except Master Shredder and Toshiro-sensei, but Raphael seemed to have offended her especially.

He scrambled out of the van, and watched as four genin dragged a screaming Marino out of the side door. The man was doing his damndest to stay inside the van, but the ninja easily extracted him like a nut from a shell. He was still tied up, with blood trickling from where he had strained against the cord. As he looked around, his eyes fell on Raphael, and his face contorted.

"You're dead, monstro!" he bellowed, his eyes glittering feverishly as he looked at Raphael. "Dead!"

Raphael watched as they dragged him into the building, still screaming about revenge against the mutant turtle. Idly his hand went to his sai, and the sticky coating of blood reminded him that he still had to clean it.

"Raphael?"

He stiffened and turned around, his hand clutching his sai harder. But it was only another ninja, who stood very upright as if standing at attention.

"Yeah?" Raphael said.

"Master Shredder orders you to his throne room in one hour's time," the ninja said, reciting the message in a mechanical manner.

Raphael glanced down at his body. Now that the rush of his first successful mission was over, he realized he was dirtier than he had ever been in his entire life. Dried sweat caked his green skin; he was liberally spattered with blood from where Marino's men had gotten too close; and his entire body reeked of the sewers, especially his legs, since the wraps that ran from his feet to his thighs were soaked in filthy, stinking water.

An hour was just long enough for him to shower, clean his sai and start washing his mask and wraps, he decided. He couldn't appear in front of Master Shredder looking — and smelling — the way he did now.

"I'll be there," he said.

His guards were already waiting outside his door when he arrived at his room, even though he hadn't been to bed yet and it was the middle of the night.

One of them grinned as he approached. "Good news, huh?" he said.

"The best," Raphael responded with a small smile. "I got 'im."

"The master's gonna be happy about that."

Yes, he will, Raphael thought as he stepped into his bathroom and flicked on the light. Although one thing did puzzle him — Master Shredder couldn't possibly have known that Raphael would be the one to capture Marino. There had been dozens of ninja there, including Karai. So why had he been summoned when Marino had barely even entered the building?

He mused over it as he stripped off his blood-stained mask and his sewer-drenched wraps, and left them to soak in the sink. His belt was the only one he had, but fortunately it had suffered nothing worse than a few spots of blood. His body was still crusted with various fluids, and it was a relief to step into the shower and begin scrubbing himself furiously, letting the hot soapy water pour over him. Blood and sweat circled down the drain, and Raphael closed his eyes, letting the anxiety he felt flow away with the water as well.

He felt much better when he emerged from the shower, and donned his spare wraps and mask. Then he caught a glimpse of his sai on the table, and remembered that they needed cleaning — desperately. He glanced at the clock on the wall, and saw that he still had enough time to keep his weapons in working order.

When the sai were clean and gleaming once again, Raphael slipped them back into his belt, and left his room behind. His heart was already beating faster as he came closer to Master Shredder's throne room, and he felt a thrill of anticipation at the idea of telling him what had arisen on the mission. Perhaps he would be sent out more often after this, just as he had hoped. He had enjoyed the mission, getting a kind of savage joy from fighting his way through the chaos.

As he stepped into the throne room, he felt a flicker of surprise. Marino was kneeling on the floor in front of Master Shredder, his arms still tightly tied, and the cord pulled down to bind his ankles as well. Someone had stuffed a rag in his mouth. His bloodshot eyes stared frantically at Raphael, as if terrified of the mutant.

Master Shredder rose from his throne, light shining off his steel helmet, and stepped down to face Raphael.

"You have done well, Raphael," he said at last. "You have pleased me greatly."

"Thank you, Master," Raphael said, bowing.

"Karai has told me a great deal about your triumph this evening, and I must say that you fulfilled my directives perfectly."

Karai? Raphael frowned, and his gaze immediately went to the young woman standing at Master Shredder's right side. She was staring blankly ahead, her face as impassive as stone. That couldn't be right, he thought. Karai would never go to such lengths to praise Raphael to her grandfather…

"I hope to use you again in future missions to similar results," Master Shredder said, coming towards Raphael. "But for now, there is something to be done. Consider it a final test of loyalty and obedience."

Raphael blinked.

Shredder's hand dipped down to Raphael's waist, and pulled one of the sai from his belt. He held it out toward the turtle, who slowly took hold of it.

"Execute him," Shredder commanded.


	21. Chapter 21

Fun fact: this chapter at one point contained a rape scene. Guess where it happened.

* * *

"Execute him."

It took a moment for the words to sink into Raphael's mind, making sense of them, and another moment as he slowly looked over at Marino, and then down at the sai in his hand. He began walking slowly towards Marino, clutching the weapon tightly. But for some reason, his legs were reluctant to move, as if he were dragging heavy weights behind him.

Marino was struggling more than ever, blood trickling from his hands as he tore at the cord. Raphael could see fear blooming in his eyes as the turtle pointed the sai at his throat. The sharp tip broke the man's skin, and a scarlet drop trickled down the length of the sai.

But he couldn't make his hand move any further. This… this didn't feel right. He had killed for the Foot before — that very night, in fact. It was one of the things he had been taught. But those deaths were in battle, against people who were trying to kill him in return. They had a chance to defend themselves, to fight back, to kill Raphael themselves if they had the skill.

This… this was a man bound and immobile. Helpless.

The sai trembled in Raphael's hand as he withdrew it, stepping away from Marino in confusion. He slowly turned to face Master Shredder, and said quietly, "I… I can't."

Master Shredder said nothing, and his masked face betrayed nothing of his thoughts. Raphael felt a wrench in his chest as he realized he had failed this test — that he had disappointed his master. He looked down at the sai still clutched in his shaking hand, and felt fear rising inside him like smoke from a newly-kindled fire.

And then Master Shredder was standing beside him, his masked face still impassive, still mysterious. Raphael took a step backwards reflexively, confusion crossing his face as he watched his master's eyes for some hint of what to say, what to do. This had never happened to him before, and he could feel the confusion deepening into panic.

"M-Master…" he said faintly. "I just—"

He didn't see Shredder's fist coming until it was too late. The jonin's strike in the center of his chest crashed him off his feet, sending him tumbling backwards across the floor. He finally stopped just in front of the wall, landing heavily on his right shoulder, his legs scrabbling at the concrete floor.

For a second he panicked, feeling as though his lungs had collapsed in on themselves. Tears poured from his eyes as he struggled to breathe, struggled past the throbbing pain in his chest. If he had been human, the strike might have killed him; as it was, his tough plastron had protected him from some of the impact.

His fingers clawed at the floor as he tried desperately to get to his knees, to face Master Shredder, to try to explain why he couldn't do it…

"Let me be clear," Shredder said in a low voice. "I was not asking you."

A bladed hand snaked under Raphael's torso, seizing the front of his belt and twisting him up to face his master's eyes. They were blazing with white-hot rage, a fury more potent and hateful than any Raphael had seen before. It terrified him — all the more so because he knew there was no one in the Foot Clan who would dare to come to his aid. They would let him die rather than incur Shredder's wrath.

Suddenly the hand wrenched Raphael's belt against his body. He was thrown backwards, hammered into the wall behind him. His shell made a sickening crunching sound as the concrete behind him crumbled, and he felt the painful impact rattle through his entire skeleton. For a horrible moment, he thought that Master Shredder had broken his shell, but realized he could still feel his legs.

Slowly he sank back to the ground on his hands and knees, gray dust settling around him. "M-Master," he whispered. "P-please…"

"Your disobedience comes with a price," Shredder said tightly.

Another blow, this one a blindingly-painful strike in the side, sending white-hot fingers of pain through Raphael's guts. As he writhed in the dust, he felt Master Shredder slip his remaining sai out of his belt, and weigh it in his hand thoughtfully. Fear roiled through him, a fear more piercing than the terror he had felt before.

Master Shredder was going to kill him with his own sai.

But as he struggled back to his hands and knees, Shredder tossed the sai across the room to join the first. "You have forgotten your place, Raphael," he said, his fist striking the turtle in the stomach, causing him to curl in on himself, gasping desperately for breath. "You have forgotten that you are mine completely. Body and soul."

Raphael's mind was spinning as he crouched before the jonin, fragments of thoughts whirling through the confusion of his oxygen-starved brain. He saw the kick coming this time, but was powerless to avoid it — it crashed into his abdomen and sent him rolling back against the ruined wall. Bits of broken concrete dug into his face as he scrabbled to rise again.

Then a foot slammed down on his carapace, pressing him face-down. Raphael groaned and strained against it, pushing his hands against the floor with all his strength, but he was too dazed, too breathless for it to make any impact. He felt as though his body was going to break, or his shell going to crack under the pressure. His lungs felt like they were going to collapse again… black dots were swimming in front of his eyes…

"Everything you are — everything you have ever been — was because I willed it," Shredder said grimly. "You belong to me."

His hand seized Raphael's throat, tilting his head back. Raphael's eyes darted to Shredder's face as the jonin said ominously, "In every way."

Suddenly the weight was gone from his shell, and Raphael was able to suck in another breath, coughing and gasping as if he had been drowning.

Then he was suddenly yanked back, with his aching carapace pressed against a wall. There was a flash of steel as Shredder's hand darted towards his face, and Raphael felt two lines of fire suddenly blaze on his cheek, drawing another gasp from him. Something warm and wet trickled down his face.

"Disobedience is death, Raphael," Shredder said sternly.

The jonin pressed the tips of his blades, still stained with Raphael's blood, to the soft skin directly under the turtle's eye. Raphael froze in place, his breath coming in hitched gasps, as the blades traced along the eyelid, as if Master Shredder was considering whether to stab him there. Instead he felt the blades slipping down to his throat, brushing the thin skin that covered his jugular vein.

"But I will be merciful," Shredder said.

Raphael was acutely aware of his heartbeat, pulsing against the blades that touched his throat. If Master Shredder even nicked him there, he would be dead — even if he didn't bleed out too quickly for medical help, which he probably would, no one would save him. No one would give aid to someone their master had condemned to death.

Then suddenly the blades were pulled away from his throat, and Shredder rose to his feet. "I will give you another chance. Execute him, or share his fate immediately. Choose," he rumbled.

Raphael stared at him blankly for a moment, as if he hadn't heard correctly. Then he slowly climbed to his feet, his knees shaking after the beating he had suffered, and made his way to where his sai had been thrown. As he stooped down to pick them up, he heard Marino's muffled voice screaming against the rag in his mouth, saw him thrashing against his bonds as best he could.

He slipped one of the sai into his belt, and gripped the other one in white-knuckled fingers. Slowly he turned towards Marino, with the grim finality of what he had to do to survive ringing in his heart.

Raphael raised the sai over his head, and brought it down.

It made a horrible squishing, meaty sound that he had never noticed, probably because there had been noise and confusion when he had killed with his sai before. Marino's body crashed sideways to the ground, going limp, and a puddle of scarlet blood began to spread over the concrete floor, soaking into his soiled suit and disheveled hair. His eyes stared mindlessly into space, but Raphael had the unnerving feeling that they were staring at him.

He felt numb. Like something had ripped the nerves from his chest, leaving him hollow and deadened inside. Slowly he knelt beside the body, and wiped the blood staining his sai on its jacket sleeve, not noticing that the blood had spattered his plastron and his face.

He heard Master Shredder pass behind him, his cape rustling softly as he moved. He was displeased, Raphael could tell, but not so much that he was willing to kill over it any longer.

Raphael looked down at the corpse, and something began to stoke inside his chest, something he had never felt for his master before. Rage. He felt it burning in his eyes as he looked up at Shredder, felt it seething under his plastron, felt it blazing in his blood and skin and bones. It took all of his self-control to slip the sai back into his belt, rather than flinging it.

"That is the fire I wish to see in you," Shredder said, sounding satisfied. His eyes gleamed in the dark, almost covetous. "You will not hesitate to kill again." It wasn't a question, but a command.

Raphael felt a tremor pass through his body, and he didn't know if it was rage or fear — the two seemed to be warring inside him, and he didn't know which was going to win. Karai looked down on him with hooded eyes and a small, twisted smile on her lips. She had known, Raphael realized — perhaps she had even come up with the idea, just to see what he would do.

He turned and blindly walked from the throne room, feeling a loud rushing in his ears that blotted out every sound. He was barely aware of other ninja scuttling out of his way, seeing his vacant stare and the blood staining his body. All he could think of was the savage beating he had just endured — the feel of blades against his throat — the terrifying knowledge that if he didn't kill Marino, his master would kill him.

He plunged past his guards into his room, shaking like a leaf with mingled rage and distress. One of them spoke to him, but he couldn't understand what the man had said before the door slammed shut behind him.

Raphael sank onto his bed and crouched down, wrapping his arms around his middle. His body was still ringing with the shock of Shredder's attack, and he vaguely realized that he was lucky he hadn't been stabbed by those bladed gauntlets when Shredder was punching him. Lucky. If he could be called that.

 _Everything you are — everything you have ever been — was because I willed it. You belong to me._

He had been wrong. He had spent so long trying to prove that he was more than a pet, more than a material possession. That he was not a thing to be owned. He had believed that one day he would be able to convince others that he was more than that — that he was his own person, that his being a mutant did not mean he was less than the others.

But he had just been deceiving himself.

All along, no one around him — including his master — had seen him as anything more than a thing to be possessed. He was a tool to them, a weapon, like the swords that the ninja carried into battle — a sword had no mind of its own, cutting and slashing wherever its master wished for it to. And when he had refused to draw blood one time, he had nearly been broken, discarded as a useless blade.

All his dedication to the Foot Clan, his unwavering loyalty to Master Shredder, his desperation to be of service… none of it had counted for anything. Was this what Toshiro-sensei had tried to warn him of? And Mother too?

"Mother," he whispered brokenly. "Mother…"

He rested his forehead against the floor, desperately wishing that she were here for him now. The aimless rage inside him, the bone-deep pain… he needed her voice, her eyes.

And now that the initial shock was wearing off, he could feel all the injuries that Master Shredder had left him with — the two burning slashes on his face, the ugly bruises rising on his green skin, the painful spots on his plastron where he had been struck and kicked, the cuts and scrapes from broken concrete biting into his skin, the dull ache in his shell where he had been smashed into a concrete wall. The beating had taken its toll on his body, and he was trembling so hard now that he could barely creep into his bed.

He briefly thought about going to the clinic to have his wounds tended to, but decided against it. They probably wouldn't treat someone who had so obviously been disciplined by the jonin.

Instead he curled himself on his futon, still trembling, and closed his eyes. His mind was still in turmoil, awash with grief and rage, and the pain from his beating was too fresh for his body to relax. For a long time he lay silently in the darkened room, aching for the smell of camellias and the song of birds. Mother…

 _"_ _My son."_

 _He didn't realize he was dreaming until he heard Mother's voice, smelled the grass and flowers all around him. But somehow, this time was different from the times he had seen Mother during his training — he still felt every ache and pain from the beating._

 _She was bending over him, her cheeks wet with tears and her eyes bright and anguished. Her soft hands gently cupped Raphael's face, tracing the fresh slashes Shredder had made in his face. He flinched, his breath catching at a fresh blast of pain, but didn't pull away._

 _"_ _My baby," she whispered. "My poor precious child…"_

 _"_ _He—he hurt me, Mother," Raphael whispered. His rage had faded, and there was only grief in him now._

 _She rested her face against his, and he could feel her tears trickling down, mingling with his own as they poured over the gashes in his cheek. But instead of burning as he expected them to, Mother's tears seemed to cause the pain to fade. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, and she gently stroked his head and his shell, embracing him as if he were a little child._

 _"_ _I cannot take away any more of your pain," she whispered. "All I can give you is my love… and the promise that this night, as dark as it is, is not the end for you. You are lost and lonely, but you will find your way."_

 _"_ _How?" Raphael whispered._

 _"_ _By enduring, and having faith. Faith in those who will truly care for you."_


	22. Chapter 22

The pain was worse when Raphael woke in the morning, his pillow damp under his face. More dark bruises and cuts had bloomed on his sides, his face, his shoulders and limbs, and he had to check his plastron to make sure it hadn't cracked. It took him a long while to rise from his bed, feeling pain spike through him with every movement.

The only thing that no longer hurt was his cheek. When he limped into the bathroom, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The green skin on that side was unmarred, as if he had never been cut in the first place.

Raphael closed his eyes, and let his head hang low over the sink. He felt empty. Drained. Hollow. The things that had mattered desperately to him just a day ago felt small and inconsequential now, dwarfed by the sudden awareness of how truly alone he was. Even Mother's consoling words felt far away now, as he tried to figure out what to do.

With shaking hands, he placed his belt around his waist, and tied the newly-washed mask around his face. But he was unable to put on his wraps — bending his knees and leaning over sent more throbbing, stiff pain through him, so he left his legs bare.

Raphael could feel eyes on him as he limped through the corridors of the building. He had no idea if word about his failed test had spread throughout the Foot, or whether they were just shocked at his appearance. Let them stare, he thought bleakly. He didn't care anymore.

He felt a flutter of apprehension as he stepped into Master Shredder's throne room, unsure whether he was even supposed to be here. He stiffly bowed, feeling his sore abdomen and hips protesting at the motion, and looked up to see what the jonin was going to do.

Master Shredder inclined his head slightly. "What is wrong, Raphael?" he said. "Take your place."

"Yes—Master," Raphael grunted, straightening up.

He painfully walked to his place at Shredder's left, feeling Karai's gimlet eyes watching his every step. She was probably loving this, he reflected bitterly. He was hobbled by pain and humiliated, both things she had probably wanted to see for a long time.

But Master Shredder gave no sign of what he had said or done the previous night — or indeed of noticing Raphael's injuries. Apparently he saw no point in pursuing the matter further, since Raphael now knew what would happen if he defied his master. Even the bloodstain on the floor was gone without a trace.

Raphael closed his eyes, and rested his aching shell against the wall. Nothing had really changed, he realized. Only his perceptions. He had dedicated himself to the Foot Clan, not realizing what he was to them. Now the Clan and Master Shredder — and his own pride in his skill and training — were all he had, without the illusions he had clung to for all those months.

Without them, what was he? Worthless. Meaningless. A life away from them wasn't something he could even imagine — no, it wasn't even a life at all.

* * *

Raphael's injuries healed quickly, and within a week even the worst of his aches and bruises had faded away. But the hollow ache in his chest hadn't faded, and it even seemed to intensify at times.

His daily life changed little in the wake of the failed test — every day he attended Master Shredder, a silent and watchful presence lurking in the shadows of the throne room. Master Shredder appeared to have chosen to ignore Raphael's misstep, speaking to him and acting towards him as if nothing had happened. At times he almost spoke warmly to the mutant turtle.

"Your loyalty to the Foot Clan is commendable, Raphael," he said one day. "Which is why I have decided to reward you."

"Reward me?" Raphael said blankly.

The jonin looked down on him with an air of satisfaction. "You wished to be sent on more missions as a ninja. You leave tonight to eradicate a certain street gang that has repeatedly attacked Foot Clan convoys."

Raphael bowed, feeling his stomach lurch. "Yes, Master."

The gang — who called themselves the Wolverines — were no difficulty at all. Raphael led a small contingent of ninja to the small warehouse where they spent much of their time, and carved them from the face of New York. Though the gang was large, they were also disorganized and unskilled in fighting — it was like fighting petty criminals on the street for Raphael all over again, as he dodged switchblades, chains and the occasional gun. Too easy.

Raphael threw himself into the mission, lashing out with his sai and bellowing as he stabbed and slashed his way through the gang's ranks. Maybe he would feel less shaken, more sure of his place in the Foot if he threw himself more fully into serving it. Master Shredder had made him a sword, so he would act as one. So he flung himself into the midst of the gang, was swarmed by endless grasping hands trying to stab him, shoot him, choke him.

When he returned to the Foot Clan headquarters, he was covered in blood, most of it not his own. Master Shredder's eyes glinted at the sight, and he congratulated the mutant turtle on his success.

It wasn't the last mission he was sent on. At least once a month, Raphael found himself sent out into the night, to battle or to kill — and though he now knew that others saw him as a weapon, he still threw himself into the fights with all of his strength.

What else was he to do? The Foot Clan was his home, his family, his whole life — and he had no idea what he was supposed to do. There was no other place he could go, no other people he could rely on. He had dedicated everything to the Clan, to his master — even when they hurt him, he never swayed in his knowledge that this was where he belonged and all he aspired to. Every day. Every hour. Every minute. For as long as he could remember, the Foot Clan had been everything to him.

So he hardened himself, forced himself to fight and live through the devastation that had overwhelmed him on that fateful night, the pain of loss when he had been beaten by Master Shredder. He was tough. He could take it — he could handle anything, even the knowledge that to the Foot, he was a thing to be used.

His nights remained as they had been. He still slipped out on most evenings, roaming rooftops in search of petty crime to quash. Rumors began to spread of a double-knife-wielding vigilante in the surrounding blocks, who struck without warning during the night. Other, stranger rumors about the vigilante — such as his odd appearance — began to spread as well.

And when he made his way back home, collapsing into his bed, he dreamed of Mother in her ever-verdant garden, surrounded by springtime flowers that never faded. He still told her what he did during the day, but found that the descriptions of his missions always seemed to sadden her.

 _When he asked why, she simply said, "Because of the peril to you, my son."_

 _"_ _But I'm not in any danger, Mother," Raphael responded._

 _She sighed. "You are always in danger," she said softly. "Your heart and soul are."_

So sometimes, Raphael told her nothing at all, afraid she would worry if he did, and simply enjoyed being in her presence. The hardened knots in his soul seemed to loosen when he was around her, a relief that he never experienced anywhere else. There was no one he trusted as much as Mother, even though he wasn't entirely sure whether she was real.

And in this way, six months passed.


	23. Chapter 23

Something was happening.

Raphael could almost smell it in the autumn air — the urgency that came when something important was coming up. It had started when a message came from the Foot's spy at StockGen, which had prompted Karai to charge out into the night with a contingent of Foot ninja, her eyes blazing and her face set in determined lines.

Raphael watched the black-clad figures vanish into the night, resting a hand on his sai. This had to be something major, he reflected. He couldn't remember the last time Karai had gone somewhere so swiftly and with so little time to prepare.

And the mention of StockGen piqued his interest. Master Shredder had told him long ago of his origins — how he had been a turtle hatchling from StockGen's experiments, who had been doused in a chemical mutagen also from StockGen. That was how he had become a mutant, apparently. He didn't know much else about the place except for that, and had concluded long ago that he didn't need to know about it, or someone would have told him.

"Master," he said hesitantly. "What's happened at StockGen?"

Master Shredder did not answer at first, as though mulling over his answer. Finally he said, "We have received word that StockGen has captured a mutant for experimentation."

Raphael felt his heart skip a beat. "A mutant?" he said, stiffening.

"Yes, Raphael, another mutant," Master Shredder said, sounding amused by his reaction. "And if our enemies are enhancing their ranks with mutants, we shall do the same — but with greater effectiveness."

Raphael's mind was still processing this news. He had certainly known that it was possible there were other mutants out there — all it seemed to take was a splash of the mutagen, if he was anything to go by — but he had never actually heard of one before. Similarly, he had occasionally heard whisperings among the genin of a possible mutant army, of countless mutants trained in ninjutsu, if Master Shredder could obtain enough of the ooze, but had dismissed the idea as just gossip. Certainly Master Shredder had never said anything in his hearing about it.

"What do you mean, Master?" he said slowly.

"We shall add this new mutant to our ranks, if he is able to fight effectively. The most adaptive, the most powerful, the most capable fighters will belong to the Foot Clan, and we will dominate in the war that is coming to this city." Master Shredder slowly turned to Raphael. "Fighters like you, Raphael."

"What—if he doesn't wanna?" Raphael asked.

"He has no choice in the matter," Master Shredder said, an ominous tone entering his voice.

An uneasy feeling crept into Raphael's heart, as he contemplated what would happen to this mysterious mutant if he were to refuse Master Shredder's will. His hand slowly rose to touch the side of his face, even though no scars had been left behind, and his breath caught in his throat. He remembered all too well what refusal had felt like.

But he doubted the mutant would for long. Master Shredder was always obeyed, one way or another.

And another feeling was rising inside him like smoke from a kindling fire — excitement. He had lamented to Mother before that he was the only mutant in the Foot Clan, and that another might be able to understand him, commiserate with him… befriend him. Now there was the chance for another mutant to be a part of the Foot — someone who would understand what it was like to be a "freak." He could try to reach out to this mutant, convince him that it was in his best interest to obey Master Shredder, let him know that he wasn't the only mutant there…

If the mutant showed signs of resistance, Raphael decided, he would ask Master Shredder to let him speak. It couldn't hurt, and it might help…

"What are you thinking, Raphael?" Master Shredder inquired.

"I… I was wonderin' what kind of mutant he is, Master," Raphael said hastily.

Master Shredder steepled his fingers. "The message did not say."

* * *

The night air was blisteringly chilly, especially with the wind blowing in gales down the city streets. Scores of ninja were spilling out into the street, and then fading into the shadows, their footsteps silent, their eyes keen as they vanished into the alleys and rooftops of New York. The waxing moon hung low overhead, like a giant white eye staring down at them.

Raphael took a step forward, intending to join them on the journey to the rendezvous point with Karai. She was supposed to bring the mutant to one of their many buildings, a former warehouse that the Foot had refitted according to their needs. Raphael had never been there before — most of his time was spent in their main headquarters, and most of his missions outside were on enemy territory.

But as he moved forward, a bladed arm swung in front of him. "No, Raphael. You will ride with me tonight," Master Shredder said.

"Yes, Master," Raphael said.

The journey to the rendezvous was a silent one. Raphael kept his hands clamped on his knees, and his eyes fixed on the buildings rolling by outside. He could see the dark shapes of the other ninja flitting over the rooftops outside, briefly silhouetted against the moon and deep gray clouds, and he almost thought he could hear their footsteps as they landed lightly on the roofs. His muscles tensed as he unconsciously thought of how it felt to be running out at night.

Finally the car pulled up to what appeared to be a large warehouse, and Raphael followed Master Shredder inside. It was a single large room inside, with windows showing the night sky high up on the walls. Torches burned against the walls, and a stone platform like a stage stood at one end of the room.

"Remain out of sight, Raphael," Master Shredder said, pulling his crimson cloak around himself.

The turtle obeyed, slipping into the shadows near the platform, letting them slip around him like a curtain. Raphael supposed that his master was intending to reveal him to the other mutant at the right moment, in order to show that he would be welcome in the Foot — that being a mutant was no barrier.

Other Foot ninja began filing into the room, silent and shadowy, their faces hidden by masks. They formed a semicircle around the stage, crowding out into the corners of the room and waiting. Waiting. Waiting for the sign to do something Master Shredder commanded. Waiting in case this new mutant was violent or uncontrollable.

Then the doors opened, and Karai appeared between them.

Raphael felt excitement and apprehension warring inside him, making him squirm slightly. He was tempted to move closer to the end of the platform to see more of what was happening, but didn't dare disobey Master Shredder.

The ninja with Karai were dragging a smaller, slighter figure dressed in a rather ratty kimono, hands bound behind its back, a blindfold over its eyes. The head moved slowly from side to side, as if trying to hear or smell something about its surroundings. Raph leaned forward, trying to see it more clearly.

"Well done, Karai," Master Shredder said.

The mutant was forced down onto his knees before Master Shredder, who came closer to see what they had claimed. Raphael felt his breath catch in his throat as Karai finally tore off the blindfold from the mutant's head.

It was a rat.


	24. Chapter 24

**The dialogue in this section is going to be from the comic books themselves, so I cannot take credit for it.**

 **Regarding the interactions between Splinter and Shredder, Splinter is the reincarnation of a medieval ninja who was slain by Shredder, who effectively became immortal later on.**

* * *

"I am Karai, of the Foot Clan, and you are a prisoner. You would do well to remember that. Just as you would do well to show respect, rodent, and bow down before…" She gestured towards Shredder grandly, her eyes flintily worshipful towards her grandfather. "Master Shredder!"

Raphael felt a shiver run through him as all eyes turned in respect and fear towards their master, who rose above them dressed in steel, black and blood-red.

All eyes, that was, save for those of the rat, who seemed determinedly unimpressed by what he was seeing. Raphael had to admit that the rodent had guts — most people would be frightened out of their wits to be bound and helpless before a clan of ninja, but he seemed more… annoyed than anything else. Either he was an expert bluffer who hid his fear better than anyone Raphael had ever seen, or swaying him to join the Foot Clan would be more difficult than the turtle had thought it would be.

Karai, meanwhile, was regaling the rat with descriptions of the Foot."We are assassins. We are thieves. We are are ninja," she declared to the rat's face.

"I know what you are," he said quietly.

It was such a strange answer that Raphael blinked, and glanced briefly at Master Shredder. How could this rat mutant know about them, when they knew almost nothing about him? It wasn't as if the Foot Clan's operations were well-known outside of the underworld.

Karai smirked. "Do you?" she said sarcastically. She began pontificating again — something she loved to do, but rarely got the chance to do, in Raphael's experience. "Then, do you also know why we have brought you here?A war is coming, rodent—one that will begin in the filthy streets of this city and spread to engulf the entire world. A war for power and control—a war the Foot Clan has planned for ages. And with Master Shredder leading us… a war the Foot Clan will dominate."

Raphael knew nothing of this plan, but then, he didn't need to know, he thought a little bitterly. He was a sword, and a sword did not need to know the plans of his master.

The rat shifted slightly. "And what has this war to do with me?" he asked, still sounding unimpressed.

Either the rat was the gutsiest person that Raphael had ever seen, or he was too stupid to figure out what was clearly in store for him. He wasn't sure which it was, but it was definitely one of those two.

"You are living proof that our foes have begun enhancing their standing armies with mutated soldiers of remarkable abilities… as have we." Her gimlet-like eyes turned briefly towards the shadows where Raphael was standing.

"You have not answered my question—what does this have to do with me?"

"You have the opportunity to join us today, mutant. To become a soldier for the Foot Clan," Karai declared, in a tone that brooked no refusal. "But first… a test!"

Master Shredder made a gesture, and Karai sliced the ropes from the rat's wrists, then tossed her katana into his hands. He looked mildly perturbed by this, rather than alarmed.

And from the crowd of Foot ninja came the biggest of them — a behemoth at least seven feet tall and packed with dense slabs of muscle, and a kusarigama clutched in his hands. Though he was masked like all the others, he went bare-chested as a sign of his confidence in his own abilities.

Raphael tensed and leaned forwards, his eyes caught on the rat as the other mutant began leaping aside from the whirling chain being thrown after him. He was rooting for the rat on principle, and perhaps out of the selfish desire to see him win so that the Foot Clan would induct him into their ranks. So Raphael wouldn't be alone anymore.

But as the rat leaped and whirled, Raphael felt disbelief taking the place of his prior eagerness. The rat fought like a ninja already trained — he handled the katana as deftly as if he had been born to wield it, and easily drove back the massive ninja with a knee to the gut. The ninja was good, especially for someone as massive as he was, but the rat was clearly much better. Who had taught him how to fight like this?

Finally the rat seized the chain and swung around to kick the ninja in the face, knocking him to the floor. He raised the katana over his head, but did not lower it.

"Why do you hesitate, mutant? Kill or be killed!" Karai ordered.

The rat did lower his katana then… but not towards the fallen ninja. "No. I will not execute this man," he declared calmly.

Karai flew into a rage. "Fool! Master Shredder commands it! Do you not understand what is at stake should you disobey?!"

Raphael felt a heavy weight settle in his stomach. He knew perfectly well what was at stake — the mutant's very life. His fingers moved up to touch his unmarred cheek, and he hoped with all his might that the mutant didn't risk Shredder's displeasure by sparing the man.

"Yes, young lady, I fully understand what is at stake. Honor. My honor," he said, gesturing at the ninja around him. "I know much of the Foot Clan... Much more than you could possibly realize. Most important, I know that this was once an honorable clan—but no longer." He pointed at Master Shredder, and Raphael felt a shiver of horror go through him. "No, its honor was destroyed from within by another like you. He, too, desired power above all other things—complete domination at all costs. He, too, was wrong."

Karai nearly went berserk, shouting threats at the rat that Raphael barely paid attention to. His mind was whirling with questions about the bizarre things the rat kept saying — he spoke as if he had spent years around the Foot Clan, had seen it in action long ago and seen it evolve over time. But that wasn't possible — it couldn't be.

As far as Raphael knew, there were no mutants older than he was — at least, not much older. And he knew the Foot Clan from the very moment he had mutated. How could this rat know so much when he had never had the opportunity to learn about it? How could he know? Raphael's head spun, and he was almost tempted to step forward and demand to know where the rat had learned these things — how he could possibly know. Tempted, but not enough to break ranks.

"I would rather die than join you and lose my honor," the rat declared in a ringing voice. "You defile the Foot Clan. I will not be party to this disgrace."

Raphael steeled himself for what was inevitably coming next. Either Karai or Master Shredder would lash out and end the rat's life for his disrespect, and for his blatant refusal to join the Foot Clan. He waited for the flash of steel, the sharp tang of blood on the air.

Instead, Master Shredder murmured, "It… cannot be. Hamato Yoshi?"

Raphael's head snapped around. Did Master Shredder… know this rat?

The rat replied, "Oroku Saki?"

Master Shredder lifted his helmet and pulled the mask from the bottom half of his head, revealing a strong-boned face marred by a scar running over one eye.

His voice rang out through the echoing room. "I would ask how it is you are here, Hamato Yoshi, and in this form, but I have not returned from my long death to waste precious time on the inconsequential. Karai, destroy him."


	25. Chapter 25

**Some of the dialogue in this chapter is from the comics, issue #11 and #12 to be exact, so I can't take credit for all of it.**

Raphael stiffened as the Foot ninja in the building rose almost as one, their blades in their hands, rising like silver blades of grass around the rat. The only one who wasn't was Karai, who had raised her bow and was aiming an arrow straight at the rat's head.

Hamato Yoshi's head.

Who was Hamato Yoshi? Raphael found himself wondering, perplexed. Master Shredder spoke as if they had known each other a long time, but he hadn't recognized the rat until he spoke. In fact, he seemed puzzled by the fact that Hamato Yoshi was a rat at all… had this rat once been a human, and somehow transformed into a rat? That wasn't possible, was it? All Raphael knew of the mutagen was that it transformed animals into mutants like himself, but he didn't know what the effects were on humans…

Once again he was sorely tempted to step out and ask questions. But, he reluctantly told himself, they would have to go unanswered, because Master Shredder had ordered that the rat was to die. If Karai didn't kill him successfully, then Hamato Yoshi would fall before the dozens of Foot ninja present…

Karai's arrow sang through the air, but the rat simply slashed it out of the air with his katana, cleaving it in two. Raphael's eyes widened — that was a feat that only a few people he had seen were skilled enough to do. One of them was Master Shredder.

"Useless girl," Shredder growled, now masked and helmeted again. "Foot ninja, attack!"

They obeyed, dozens of dark-clad figures leaping towards Hamato Yoshi with weapons at the ready — katana, tanto, bo, nunchaku, anything else that could fell a single rat mutant with a sword. Raphael expected the rat to tire and give out quickly, but to his surprise Hamato Yoshi didn't seem to be losing his energy — he spun and leaped, kicking ninja in the face and slashing them with his katana. They fell like flowers cut by a blade, crumpling to the ground until none of them were left standing.

"Now…" Hamato Yoshi said grimly, facing Master Shredder, "shall we continue?"

Master Shredder turned slightly towards Raphael, and his dark eyes glinted under his helmet. "Raphael… you may join the battle."

"Yes, Master," Raphael said immediately, stepping out of the shadows and warily approaching the rat. His hands pulled his sai from his belt, twirling them briefly before clenching them between his fingers. Normally he wouldn't have been so cautious, even of a mutant, but after seeing him defeat so many foes at once… well, there was no shame in being careful.

But he wasn't prepared for the rat's reaction. Hamato Yoshi stared at him with wide eyes, slowly taking in the turtle's appearance from his toes to the black mask across his face. Every inch of exposed green skin, every fold of black cloth, every detail of Raphael's face. It made the turtle feel vaguely uncomfortable — he was used to scrutiny and being stared at, but the rat stared at him as if he truly could not believe what he was seeing.

"Raphael?" Hamato Yoshi whispered at last. "Is it really you?"

Raphael blinked. "I don't know you," he said.

Sadness crept into the old rat's eyes, as if Raphael's words had pierced him to the heart. "No," he said softly. "You do not. Not now."

"Kill him, Raphael," Master Shredder said, his voice dripping with hate.

Raphael dropped into a stance, his sai in his hand ready to catch and snap the blade of the rat's katana. He didn't particularly want to do this — he had too many questions that needed answering — but he knew that refusing would only lead to his own death as well as Hamato Yoshi's. He remembered the savage beating he had suffered all too well, and he knew that there would be no such mercy this time around.

"I will not harm you, Raphael," Hamato Yoshi said quietly, raising his sword. "Never will I harm you. But neither can I allow you to harm me."

"Why are you acting like you know me?" Raphael said, feeling irritation rising inside him. "I've never seen you before!"

"Not for a long time," Yoshi corrected him gently. "But not never."

"What the hell does that mean?" Raphael snarled. He lunged towards the rat without waiting for an answer, acutely aware of Master Shredder's gaze on the back of his neck, and swiped outwards with his sai.

But Yoshi dodged his blows with seemingly little effort, his eyes still fixed on Raphael's face as he bent and swayed aside. Raphael could feel his anger boiling as he lashed out again, only for his blows to be either avoided or easily turned aside. Yoshi's sword swept down and wrested one of the sai from Raphael's hands, fast enough that the turtle was unable to deflect the blow, sending it spinning up into the air before embedding itself in the floor.

Clutching his remaining sai, Raphael crouched in a more defensive pose, trying to find a chink in the rat's armor. How could he be this good? he thought incredulously, watching the rat shifting into stances he didn't even recognize.

"I do not wish to fight you, Raphael," Yoshi said quietly. "Put down your weapons, and we can leave this place peacefully."

"What makes you think I want that?" Raphael snapped.

He flung himself forwards with a roar, the point of his sai aimed towards Yoshi's throat. Why did the rat keep speaking as if he knew him? For some reason that angered him — it was as if Yoshi didn't recognize that he was part of the Foot Clan. Wouldn't acknowledge him as part of it. He knew what his life had been up to this point — the Foot Clan, for as long as he could remember. Now Yoshi was trying to confuse him, acting as though it was something he could just leave behind…

He didn't see the sword swinging up until it struck the sai from his hand, and then swept down towards his neck. The thought _But he said he wouldn't harm me!_ flashed through Raphael's mind as he saw it coming… only to be sent stumbling back, unharmed except for a stinging welt on his shoulder. Yoshi had struck him with the flat of the blade, not the edge.

Before he could recover his feet, he felt clawed fingers closing on his throat — and the world around him began to waver and darken as if the rat had flipped a switch. Raphael gasped and clutched at Yoshi's arm as his legs turned to jelly and collapsed under him.

"I am sorry, my son," Yoshi said quietly. "This is the only way I can keep you out of harm's way."

"What — did you —" Raphael gasped.

His body went numb, except for some tingling along his arms and legs, and he collapsed to the floor. He wanted to scrabble back to his feet, wanted to rejoin the battle for his master's sake. But the darkness encroached on him from every direction, until he could barely hear Yoshi's voice echoing through the empty building.

"You murdered my beloved Tang Shen, Saki, and ruthlessly executed my precious sons before my very own eyes," Yoshi was snarling. "Then you took my life without allowing me the warrior's honor and justice only the purest combat can provide."

Took his life? Raphael's fogged brain struggled to understand what he was hearing. Yoshi had somehow been dead… and come back as a rat mutant? None of this made any sense…

"And yet, here I stand in this next life, prepared to make good on my final promise to you in the last."

Master Shredder's voice took on the edge of a sneer. "So, Hamato Yoshi, removing your head was not enough to cleanse your traitor's stain from this world, hm? Instead, you return from the dead a monstrosity that dares call itself master." He cast aside his scarlet cape, his eyes gleaming under his shining helm. "You may have been a master once, Yoshi, it's true. But even then, you were my inferior. In the end, just as you have admitted here, you failed to protect your wife, your sons... yourself."

He raised his bladed gauntlets. "And, now? Now you are nothing more than a rat in a trap."

Raphael fought past the darkness, pushed his fists against the concrete floor and tried to will himself upright. Strange tingling sensations were shooting through his limbs, and his head was swimming as he tried to raise it a little too fast. He could hear blades clashing — Master Shredder's voice speaking of Yoshi's impending defeat —

Finally he managed to struggle to his feet, and mechanically picked up the fallen sai from where Yoshi had thrown them. His vision was finally clearing of the dark mists that had rolled in over his head, and he could feel his extremities normally again. He stood up straighter, watched as Master Shredder loomed over the collapsed Yoshi, his blades glinting in the faint light.

"My sons," Yoshi murmured. "Forgive me…"

And for a single second, his eyes turned to Raphael, with that same sad expression, as if he were mourning something forever lost.

Then something crashed through one of the windows overhead, scattering shattered glass before landing on Master Shredder with a loud thump. He staggered to the side, dazed by the unexpected intrusion.

"You mess with our father," a voice rang out, "and you mess with us!"

Four shapes were leaping down from the broken window. One was a human, his face hidden by a hockey mask. The other three were green-skinned except for their golden-tan plastrons, their backs covered with hard curved shells, their faces masked in scarlet, and their hands clutching ninja weapons that Raphael recognized almost as well as his own sai.

He watched in stupefied amazement as three other ninja turtles leaped into the room.


	26. Chapter 26

**_Some dialogue in this is from Issue #12 of the comics._**

For a moment, Raphael was too shocked to react to what he was seeing — other mutant turtles, so like him in appearance that he doubted that most humans could tell the difference. One of them, carrying a pair of sheathed katanas on his back, passed so closely that Raphael could have reached out and touched him.

"Kill the intruders!" Master Shredder bellowed. "Kill them all!"

The one with the swords leaped towards Karai with both his weapons out, while the ones with the nunchaku and bo launched themselves into the fray with the Foot ninja who had recovered from their beating. The human was swinging what looked like a baseball bat and a hockey stick, but seemed to be doing fairly well even against trained ninja.

Raphael gripped his sai tightly, and launched himself into the battle. He felt as though everything was spinning out of control — as if unknown forces were trying to peel him away from everything he knew. He was of the Foot Clan. There was nothing else for him…

Then a bo caught one of his sai, throwing him backwards, and a pair of dark brown eyes looked down at him, widened in disbelief.

"Raphael?" the turtle gasped.

Raphael sprang back to his feet, taking a few steps back from Bo. "How do you know my name?" he demanded.

"We've been looking all over for — unh!" Bo staggered backwards as Raphael's fist connected with his abdomen. Tears sprang to his eyes as he planted his feet firmly, and spun the staff in his hand. "Okay, I'm sensing you're not in the mood to talk."

 _"_ _How do you know my name?"_ Raphael roared.

"Is that Raphael?" Nunchaku yelled out, leaping overhead with his weapons spinning.

"It sure is, and he doesn't seem happy to see us," Bo said grimly.

"Seriously? He's one of _them?_ " Nunchaku said incredulously, sending two Foot ninja flying through the air. "How did that happen?"

Raphael crouched down, ready to spring towards them as soon as he figured out what move they were going to make. His head felt like it was splitting in half — on one hand, he knew that he had to eliminate these threats to the Master, these intruders who were getting into his mind, making him wonder things he shouldn't be wondering…

And on the other hand, he desperately wanted to know what they meant, what they knew about him that he seemingly didn't even know about himself. How could they have been searching for him all this time, if no one outside the Foot even had known he existed? How had they known his name when it was Master Shredder who had named him? And why did they call the rat their "father"?

The pain behind his eyes intensified, and he swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on the turtle in front of him. Every hard line of his stance was immovable, as sharp as a diamond embedded in steel, and his sai gleamed in the faint light as he raised them.

"Raphael, listen to me," Bo said urgently. "You shouldn't be doing this — you shouldn't be here at all. We've been looking for you for months — we want to bring you home with us!"

"Stay away from me!" Raph snarled.

"Guys, less talking and more getting Father out of here!" Swords shouted. He was standing over Karai's crumpled body, his swords still shining in the light, and Raphael found himself reflecting that he wouldn't be too upset if Swords had killed her.

"He won't listen to me!" Bo shouted.

"Shut up!" Raphael snarled. He lashed out with one of his sai, almost scraping the side of the other turtle's face, but thwarted by a last minute jerk of the head.

"Leave him, Donnie!" Swords shouted. But Raphael caught a glimpse of his face, and the twist of pain that clung to the other mutant's features, as if it had hurt him to say those words. "We can't rescue Father and Raphael at the same time! There are too many of them!"

Bo threw one more anguished look at Raphael, and backflipped away towards Yoshi. Raphael threw himself after Bo, trying to grab the mutant rat before the other turtle could, but found himself blocked by a pair of crossed katana blades.

"Raphael," Swords said grimly, planting himself in Raphael's path. "We need you to listen. I know you must be very confused right now—"

"I'm not confused!" Raphael raged, lashing out with his sai.

Swords deflected the blow almost without trying, his dark eyes stern and sad. "Deep down you must know this isn't right — that you don't belong here. You belong with us."

 _"_ _Shut up!"_ Raphael bellowed, his voice almost rising to a scream.

He didn't expect Swords to punch him — his eyes were on the shining blades in the other turtle's hands, so when one of his fists flew up and struck Raphael in the jaw, it came as a surprise. It was no simple brawler's punch either; the shock rippled through his already-weakened body, bringing him to his hands and knees. A raw gasp came from his chest as he struggled to rise again, able to see nothing before him but a pair of green feet and legs.

"We'll continue this another time," Swords said quietly.

As he struggled to rise from the ground, Raphael could hear the three turtles attacking Master Shredder — he seemed to be holding his own against them, calling out, "Your father is beaten, fools. He has lost, as will you if you persist in this futile battle. Instead, join the Foot—join me—and know victory!"

And despite the frenzy burning in his blood, Raphael achingly wished that they would throw down their weapons and accept. It would take away his confusion if they would — let him speak to them, listen to them without jeopardizing everything he knew to be right…

Swords called out, "Guys, listen up! We gotta work as a team—it's our only chance. Together, just like Master trained us."

They launched into another frenzied battle of swipes, kicks and strikes with blades, the three mutant turtles fighting almost like a single unified foe in their grace and strength. Raphael couldn't help but admire their form as they drove Master Shredder back, their weapons lashing out with skill and precision that Raphael had rarely seen in the Foot — certainly more than the average ninja he had battled before could ever hope to achieve. They were stronger, faster, more agile.

Then a horrifying thought rolled through his mind — they were going to kill his Master if they could. But… but he couldn't take on all three of them.

But as he staggered to his feet, the three turtles suddenly pulled back and retreated out the open window, the half-conscious Hamato Yoshi in their grasp. He could feel their dark eyes flicking towards him, with expressions ranging from sadness to confusion.

For some reason, the fierce energy of the fight seemed to drain out of his muscles, and he sank slowly to the ground, his breath coming in short harsh gasps. His chest hurt, his head hurt, and his mind was whirling with confusion that seemed to be tearing away at the core of his being, like shrapnel being blown through his heart. What was happening? What had these strange turtles done to him?

"Yes, flee. You only delay the inevitable. This does not end here," Master Shredder's voice boomed after them. "I am unyielding. I am unstoppable." His voice lowered. "I am the Shredder."

A shuriken went flying through the air, and embedded itself in the wall beside Master Shredder's head. Raphael goggled in disbelief as he saw that Swords had done it — at that range, and with his skill, he couldn't have missed by accident. He had done it on purpose. But why?

"I am… unimpressed," Swords said dryly, before turning and racing from the building.

Raphael watched silently as they fled, until the purple shadows of night swallowed them up, leaving behind only the groaning bodies of the wounded ninja behind them. Karai was stirring, clutching at her head and moaning loudly as she tried to fight her way back to her feet. Raphael hadn't seen what Swords had done to her, but apparently he hadn't tried to kill her — or even wound her that badly. Dammit.

And Master Shredder stood silently in the midst of all the chaos, his eyes burning with blackened fire.


	27. Chapter 27

The sun was coming up as they returned to the apartment, but Leonardo shut the curtains tightly as soon as they carried Father inside. The mutant rat was unconscious, and had been the entire journey back to their temporary home. He showed no signs of waking as Mikey and Donnie lowered him gently onto the couch.

"How is he?" Casey asked anxiously.

"Exhausted," Donnie said. "I think he just needs to sleep and recover his strength."

He pulled a worn blanket over Splinter, carefully tucking it under him to keep him as warm as possible. A heavy silence settled over the room as the three brothers uneasily considered what had happened. As Donnie fussed over their father, Mikey crouched down in a chair and rested his head on his hands. Leo remained standing, his stance rigid and his arms crossed tightly across his chest, as if he were trying to remain stoic in the face of great pain.

"So that was really him, huh?" Casey said quietly.

"It can't have been anyone else," Leo said. "A mutant turtle named Raphael — the coincidence would be too great. Fate led us to him tonight."

Donnie sat back on his heels. "Has fate got any ideas about how we can get him back, or are we supposed to figure that part out ourselves?" he said sarcastically.

Leo bristled. "Donnie, even you can't deny that the chances of us encountering the one person we've been looking for for _months_ among our enemies are miniscule."

Donnie shrugged dismissively. "It makes perfect sense without the whole fate and destiny thing, Leo. The Foot kidnapped Father because they wanted mutants — who's to say that they didn't do the same thing to Raphael for the same reason?"

Leo's hackles rose at his brother's scorn, and he felt burning words rising to his tongue. But before he could say any of them, Mikey suddenly spoke up. "So we've been lookin' and lookin' for months, and it turns out Raphael's a ninja like us, only he's with the bad guys," he said slowly.

"That about sums it up, Mikey," Leo said.

"So… what are we gonna do? I saw you guys tryin' to talk to him during the fight, and he was screamin' and tryin' to stab you."

"He's confused," Leo said, his brown eyes narrowing. "He doesn't know what he's doing. Not really." He had to admit that some childish part of him had hoped that when their brother saw them, recognized that they were like him, he would abandon the Foot and rejoin his family at long last. But instead he had fought a stranger — an enemy fighting against his father and brothers.

No, Leo told himself sternly. Not an enemy. A victim of their enemies. Someone who needed their help desperately.

"He might not be confused, Leo," Donnie said quietly.

"What are you suggesting?"

"We don't know anything about Raphael. Maybe he really feels he belongs in the Foot. Maybe he… likes it there."

"I won't believe that," Leo said sternly. "If he really felt that way, he wouldn't have been so upset when we spoke to him — some part of him knew we were right." He looked down at his clenched fist. "We haven't spent this long looking for Raphael to just abandon him to the Foot. We have to find a way to help him."

"Well, that's gonna be hard," Mikey said gloomily. "He won't even listen to us, so how are we s'posed to convince him that he should leave the Foot and come with us? He doesn't even know us."

Silence settled over the room again, heavier and gloomier than before. It was broken by the sound of footsteps pattering on the stairs outside the apartment, and a door opening. A slender girl with long red hair rushed in, her eyes wide.

"You got him back!" she cried, her gaze going to Splinter. Then she saw the grim faces of the young man and three turtles, and her fair skin went even paler. "He's not…"

"He'll be fine, April," Leo said gently. "We've… just had a nasty shock. It's Raphael. We found him."

"That's great news, isn't it?" April said.

"Not exactly," Mikey said gloomily. "He's one of the bad guys, and he doesn't know who we are." He related the story to April, who sank into a chair beside Casey, and listened with wide eyes to every word of it, her hands balling into fists.

Leo was lost in his own thoughts as Mikey explained everything, remembering the tortured expression on Raphael's face as they had fought — the wild eyes, the snarls. It had been more than just aggression. Something about seeing them had upset him deeply, though Leo had no idea what it had been. If only he had a few minutes to speak to Raphael… to find out how to get through his defenses… to find some way to convince him that they were his family, that he belonged with them, that they wouldn't rest until he came back where he belonged…

But how? How could he convince someone he had never even met before to abandon everything, for the sake of strangers? He had been in the Foot Clan for who knew how long — he had probably made friends, developed loyalties. He would think their way was right. He would believe in them.

It couldn't be impossible to bring him back. Leo refused to believe that his brother was irredeemable — that his soul was too entrenched in the Foot to come back to his family. Surely the forces that had reunited them with Raphael wouldn't be so cruel as to do that if there was no hope.

Suddenly Leo felt painfully tired. He hadn't slept in two days, and he had fought at least two arduous battles during that time, as well as suffering the shock of encountering Raphael. His muscles ached, and his eyes burned and itched with sleep that he was still resisting.

He knew that he needed rest. But at the same time, he felt like every minute that he wasted on sleep was another minute their brother was in the Foot, with the dark clan's tendrils getting deeper and deeper into his spirit. It made no sense — they wouldn't be able to do more in a few hours than they had done in all these months — but Leo couldn't stop feeling that way. Somberly, he began unbuckling his belt and unslinging the katanas on his back.

"Isn't there some way you could…. I don't know, talk to Raphael?" April said hesitantly.

"We tried," Donnie said bleakly. "He kept screaming at us to shut up and stay away from him."

"We need to find a way to corner him, away from the Foot," Leo said. "If we could just talk to him — break through what the Foot has told him—"

"Talking to him might not work, Leo," Donnie pointed out. "This isn't like brainwashing. This is about trying to get someone to abandon their whole life. He tried to kill our father — tried to kill us. They have him pretty deep."

"I know," Leo said. "But we have to try. I won't give up on him."

"I think I might have an idea," Casey spoke up, having been silent all this time. "I've been hearing rumors about this one area of town where a vigilante has been causing a ruckus — mostly knockin' around street thugs. A bunch of the people he's beaten up ended up in the hospital. Kidnappers, rapists, thieves, all sorts of nice people. Most of the people he's rescued haven't seen him clearly, but they say he carries around a couple of knives and fights with kung-fu. And one person who did see him clearly says he was… well, she said he was green."

"What? Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Leo exclaimed.

Casey looked abashed. "I was goin' to. I only heard about it the other day, and… well, lots of stuff happened with Splinter being kidnapped and the little robots eatin' your home, so… it kept slipping my mind."

Leo took a deep breath, and forced himself to be calm. Casey was right — the last few days had been chaotic, and even though he had been helping them for months with searching for Raphael, it was easy to see why he had forgotten.

Still, hearing about that made him feel a little better. It meant that his brother was helping others — that he was stopping crimes from being committed, even though it was no help to the Foot Clan. There was good in his heart.

"It certainly sounds like Raphael. Even the knives — that could just be what people think his sai look like," Donnie said. "Where can we find this vigilante?"

Casey sighed. "That's the hard part. Nobody sees him unless he's beating someone up, and he goes away right afterwards without even saying anything."

Leo sighed, and let his head droop. Cornering Raphael was easier said than done — even if they could draw him out of hiding, he would see them coming if they simply chased him over the rooftops. It was hard to use the element of surprise on someone else who was also using it.

Then April's voice unexpectedly piped up. "I have an idea…"


	28. Chapter 28

Raphael was still shaking like a leaf when he lowered himself into his bed. Whatever the rat had done to almost render him unconscious was still weakening him, and the bone-rattling punch from Swords hadn't helped either. He rolled back onto his carapace, and let his aching head rest against his pillow.

The clean-up from the battle had been an arduous affair — the many Foot ninja there had been injured to some degree, and Raphael himself had been too dizzy to stand upright for a long while. What was more, the security of their facility had been violated.

When reinforcements came, Raphael had seen Karai — still a little wobbly from Swords' blow to the head — speaking to her grandfather in a hushed whisper. Master Shredder had stared at Raphael for a long time after that, his face inscrutable.

It had only occurred to Raphael once the battle was over that those mutant turtles must be them. The other three. The turtles who had been at StockGen with him, but who had been lost down a sewer grate. They must have been doused with the same mutagen and changed the way he had, rather than being eaten by rats as Master Shredder had surmised.

That knowledge had formed a hollow ache in Raphael's chest. He had wondered more than once about what his life would be like if those other three turtles had lived… but in those fantasies, they had been part of the Foot Clan like himself. There was no reason to clash with them, only to fight alongside each other. He had never thought about what would happen if they were fighting against the clan, because the idea seemed too… ridiculous.

But that didn't explain how they knew about him. How they knew his name, how they had even remembered he existed. How they had learned such astonishing ninja skills that even Master Shredder had been pushed back by all three of them.

And Raphael had barely recognized himself during that fight — he had never felt so unsure and unstable before. He had lost himself in the frenzy of battle plenty of times, but he had never felt himself spinning out of control like that before. All he had been able to do was cling desperately to the knowledge of what he was.

Raphael groaned and rolled over, burying his face in his pillow. His head ached with confusion and fatigue, and all he wanted to do now was confide his confusion in Mother. Maybe she would know what to do next, now that his entire world felt like it had been tipped on its side.

His eyelids drifted shut, and his body relaxed into slumber.

 _But instead of Mother's garden, he found himself standing in the middle of Master Shredder's throne room, with its gray walls and floor, and the Foot Clan banners hanging from the ceiling. He blinked in confusion, not sure why he wasn't in the garden with its soft grass and pleasing scents._

 _Mother was standing in the middle of the floor, her colorful kimono standing out amidst all the gray and black, her hands folded in front of her._

 _"_ _Mother?" Raphael said slowly. "What's going on?"_

 _She turned towards him then. Her dark eyes were sad, haunted, as they sometimes were when he told her about his missions. "This is not where you belong," she said softly._

 _"_ _Mother, I don't—"_

 _Then he felt a hand locking around his throat, as strong and immovable as an iron collar. Without thinking, he grasped at the hand, trying to make it loosen its grip, but his fingers drew back sharply as they touched steel blades. He looked up, straight into Master Shredder's burning eyes. Terror streaked through him, as he remembered the first time he had displeased his master. What had he done wrong?_

 _With a single movement, the jonin forced Raphael to his knees, pushing his head back so that he was forced to lean back and look up. The turtle could feel himself trembling with the effort of staying upright._

 _"_ _You have disappointed me, Raphael," Master Shredder said in a low voice._

 _"_ _Master — I don't —"_

 _"_ _Silence!" The hand tightened around Raphael's throat, momentarily cutting off his air. "I have shown you favor in the past, and you repay me with treachery."_

 _"_ _Treachery — agh! — I never —" Raphael choked._

 _"_ _Your loyalties changed the moment you saw those other turtles. You could no longer be trusted," Shredder continued, his steely eyes boring into Raphael's. Though his face was masked, rage radiated from him like light from the sun. "You betrayed me for their sake. Betrayed the Foot Clan."_

 _"_ _Master — please — I fought as hard as I could—"_

 _"_ _Lies from a traitor. Death will be the reward for your actions," Shredder said ominously, his shoulders shifting as he moved closer to the turtle's body._

 _Raphael's eyes widened as he felt a blinding slash of pain running through his body. As Shredder's fist released his throat, he looked down at his plastron. Shredder's gauntlet blades were buried deep in his abdomen, deep enough that he could feel them tearing through his organs, deep enough that the pain radiated through his body, unbearable, unstoppable…_

 _With a single sharp gesture, Shredder yanked out the blades, carving through the turtle's plastron even further, and Raphael clutched desperately at the wound, feeling his blood bubbling between his fingers. He collapsed back on the floor, shaking uncontrollably, his breath coming in desperate choking gasps. Scarlet liquid streamed between his scutes, pooled under the edge of his shell, and trickled onto the floor. He was going to die. There was no second chance this time._

 _This was all wrong. He hadn't done anything to betray his master — he had fought the other turtles with all his strength. He had been loyal! As much as he had wanted to know about them, he had fought…_

 _A delicate hand touched his face, and Raphael looked desperately up to Mother. Tears were streaming down her beautiful face as she knelt beside him, her gaze moving down to the bleeding gashes in his plastron._

 _"_ _Mother," he whispered. "Please…"_

 _"_ _This is not where you belong," she repeated, pressing her hand to his bloodstained one. "Remember that, my poor lost child…"_

 _"_ _Mother… I… please help me… I didn't do it…"_

 _And then Mother was gone. There was only the Shredder, looming over him in a swirl of crimson and black, his gauntlets still splashed with Raphael's blood. He felt panic welling up inside him as the jonin dropped to one knee at his side, his eyes blazing under the steel helmet. One strong hand gripped Raphael's shoulder, forcing him to lie still, despite the trembling that wracked his entire frame._

 _"_ _You should be pleased, Raphael," the Shredder said ominously. "Your death will be faster and more painless than your betrayal warrants."_

 _Raphael gasped as the points of those blades were pressed against his chest. His mind was whirling with confusion and horror, but one desperate thought was at the heart of it all — he needed Mother._

 _"_ _Time to die, traitor," Shredder hissed, drawing his arm back._

 _"_ _Wait, please—" Raphael cried out as the blades pierced him again, tearing through his tough plastron and ripping their way into his heart—_

"Raphael!"

A hoarse scream tore itself from his throat, filling the tiny room, followed by rasping gasps as Raphael fought his way back to consciousness, slick with sweat and wild-eyed. The first thing he saw were two masked faces leaning over him, and it took him a moment to realize that they were his guards, come into his room instead of waiting patiently outside.

He sat upward sharply, clutching at his abdomen and expecting to feel blood pouring from his guts. But as he explored over his belly and chest, his shaking hands found nothing but smooth, intact plastron.

"You were screamin' like someone was killin' you," the friendlier of the two Foot ninja said.

"I—I—I had a bad dream," Raphael gasped. He could still feel phantom echoes of the dreamed pain rippling through his body, and the memory of Shredder's burning eyes clung to his mind.

He had never had a true nightmare before — most of his nightly dreams had been of being in Mother's garden, which always served to soothe his spirit. Before that, his dreams had been vague, babyish, unformed things, mostly half-remembered sensations and feelings that were forgotten as soon as he woke. He had never dreamed something so—so terrifying before. So realistic. And he had never dreamed of Mother in a real place.

"And you were sayin' somethin' about 'Mother,'" the ninja added.

"You know I ain't got a mother," Raphael said quickly. "You must've heard wrong."

He huddled forward, clutching at his stomach and groaning. How could a blow he had only dreamed be so painful?

"Do you think we should notify Master Shredder?" the other ninja said, looking at his partner.

"It was a _bad dream_ ," Raphael said sharply, looking up at the man balefully. "Haven't you had bad dreams? Just let me get back to sleep and I'll be fine."

The guards looked at each other, and the friendlier of the two nodded before rising and leaving the room, his partner following a moment later. The door closed, filling the room with darkness again, and Raphael lay down again, shivering under his covers.

He felt almost nauseated after his nightmare, and had to keep reassuring himself by touching his stomach and chest, just to make sure. He couldn't understand why he had had that dream — why Mother would let him experience something so terrifying. So… so likely. If he ever betrayed Master Shredder, he knew that would be the least of what he would experience.

And he felt a deep-rooted fear uncoiling in him as he remembered the Shredder's accusations of him betraying the Foot for those other turtles. Was that what Master Shredder thought he was going to do?

As he fell into an uneasy sleep, words echoed in his mind: _"This is not where you belong…"_


	29. Chapter 29

Karai's head ached. It had ached ever since that damned mutant turtle with the katanas had headbutted her hard enough to knock her unconscious — a humiliating defeat as well as a painful one. He hadn't even had to use his blades to defeat her, a fact that still irked her even now.

The clinic had informed her that her skull was not cracked, but that she would have to remain alert and sleepless for a time in order to rule out a concussion. So she had been roaming through the building for a while, running the defeat through over and over in her mind.

It was unbelievable. They were the Foot — invincible and unstoppable warriors, the greatest of all ninja clans. And they had been soundly defeated by a trio of mutant turtles, a mutant rat, and some random human wearing a mask and swinging around a hockey stick. Not one of these inferior enemies had been defeated — not even one of them had truly been hurt, except for the rat collapsing from exhaustion.

Karai had never been so disgusted and embarrassed in her entire life.

She stalked into a dojo and stripped off her outer gear — her scarf, her shoulder guards, her tunic-like garments, her footwear. She swiftly set up several wooden dummies across the tatami floor, and began sweeping through sword forms with a ferocity she rarely showed in her practice. Long smooth pieces of wood were sliced neatly as she spun and leaped between them, her bare feet landing lightly between strokes.

When she had finished, she sheathed her katana without even looking back at what she had done. She knew her form had been flawless. Perfect. Without a single error. None in the Foot could have done better.

So how had she been so easily defeated by a mere turtle?

She gritted her teeth. She was beginning to truly hate turtles — first that insolent freak Raphael, and now the one with the swords who had humiliated her.

The thought haunted her for the next few hours as she continued walking through the halls, her dark eyes skimming over everything she saw. Her headache had not abated — both the literal and figurative ones, that was — but she wasn't allowed to sleep for a few more hours.

Finally her steps brought her to her grandfather's expansive chambers, near the very top of the building. The Elite at the door watched her without a word, but allowed her to pass without question. She was the chunin of the entire Foot Clan — even the powerful Elite were not in a position to question her unless Master Shredder ordered it.

Her grandfather was seated before a low table, with a meal and a small bottle of sake placed in front of him. His piercing eyes rose to where she was standing. Waited for her to speak.

She bowed quickly. "Grandfather, I wish to speak about the events of last night," she said.

He seemed to consider this, before gesturing at the seat beside himself.

Karai slid down beside her grandfather, wincing as a few sore muscles twinged in her side. The turtle — Leonardo, she thought she had heard someone call him — had been unstoppable in combat, his sword strokes a perfect offensive and defensive measure. Even more infuriating, he hadn't even been brutal about it — he hadn't even been trying to kill her, or even wound her that much.

He would regret that when they next met, she vowed.

"Grandfather," she said finally. "I have been thinking about the attack by those mutant turtles — how they breached our security so easily. If our enemies have enlisted them—"

He cut her off with a gesture.

"They are not fighting for our other enemies," he said darkly. "This is something different. More personal."

"Hamato Yoshi," Karai said.

"Indeed. He was of the Foot Clan in another lifetime, but he betrayed us by turning against me. He escaped our grasp for many years, but eventually I found him and relieved him of his treacherous head." His eyes narrowed. "Now he has returned in the form of a filthy rodent. Appropriate."

"And the mutant turtles?"

He took a sip of the sake. "Hamato Yoshi had four sons," he stated flatly.

Karai's eyes widened as she thought back to what she had seen the night before — three mutant turtles on one side, one on the other. "Four sons. Four turtles," she said slowly. "Then Raphael…"

"Is one of Hamato Yoshi's sons, long ago executed by the Foot, reborn as a mutant," Oroku Saki said, his face falling into grim lines. "I did not know this when I made him part of our clan, but perhaps it is an appropriate fate for him, that he serve the clan that his father betrayed."

"We cannot trust him," Karai blurted out, planting her hands on the tabletop. "I will have him imprisoned in one of the cells until he—"

"I gave no such order."

"Grandfather, he is dangerous."

"As I had him trained to be."

"He is the son of your enemy, an enemy who has learned of us now," Karai said fiercely.

She felt her frustration growing as her grandfather eyed her, then went back to his meal and drink. For a time, the only sound in the room was the faint tap of chopsticks against one another. It grated on her nerves as she waited for a response.

For the past year, Raphael had been an infuriating favorite of her grandfather's, and her efforts to make him see that this green interloper was not to be trusted had come to little. Even when she had seen him disobey her grandfather, the jonin's rage had only gone so far as beating the little mutant. He had been given a second chance, and had been irritatingly obedient ever since. Karai's efforts to trip him up had been for nothing.

"In this life, he is the son of the Foot Clan," Saki said at last. "He knows nothing of his past life, and nothing of Hamato Yoshi or his other sons. He will never know of these things, unless I wish him to. His loyalty is to me, now and always."

"Can you be sure he will remain that way?" Karai said, a hint of slyness creeping into her voice.

"Do you have any reason to doubt his loyalty, Karai?" her grandfather asked dryly.

He knew that she hated Raphael, Karai knew, and she also knew that he did not share her viewpoint on the turtle. So she would have to be extra persuasive to convince her grandfather of his unfitness.

She remained straight-backed and clear-eyed as she declared, "I simply am concerned that if he were to come into contact with his family — especially the other turtles — they might sway him away from the Foot Clan."

"They offer him nothing that we cannot," Saki said, his eyes fixing on some distant spot that Karai could not see. "He has been a part of the Foot Clan since the very beginning of his awareness, and such bonds are unbreakable. He is of the Foot Clan, body and soul. No matter how they might try, they will never be able to remove him from it — or it from him."

He took a sip of his sake, and a contemplative expression crossed his face. "Instead, we will see if Raphael can be an effective lure for his brothers. Four trained mutants fighting as one would be a prize indeed."


	30. Chapter 30

Raphael woke again just as the sun was setting, having slept dreamlessly and uneasily through most of the day. The lingering pain and confusion from his dream had dissipated with more sleep, but he could still remember it vividly — from Mother's face as she wept over her dying child to the feeling of cold steel blades piercing his body. A shudder ran through him as he recalled it — all of it.

He needed some air. Some freedom. Someplace to think.

He bound up his legs quickly before donning his belt and his mask, his mind still caught up in thoughts of his dream and of the previous night. He was still horribly confused about all the things that he had heard and seen — especially the other turtles.

He thought for a moment about their faces — he had seen Bo and Swords up close and personal, their faces close up against his as he fought them. He had even punched Bo in the gut, and been punched in turn by Swords. And there had been a third turtle — whom he had nicknamed Nunchaku — whom he hadn't fought personally. He had been too busy speeding through the place, his weapons whirling and his mouth going almost as fast.

They looked like him. Except for some variations in skin tone — Bo was sort of an olive green, and Swords was more of a standard grass green — he suspected that they would be almost indistinguishable in human eyes. If they were the three that had been lost down in the sewer…. he supposed that made them his brothers.

The face of Swords flashed into his head, sternly speaking to him as Raphael had tried to get past his defenses. _"Deep down you must know this isn't right — that you don't belong here. You belong with us,"_ he had said.

No. No. That wasn't right. Raphael found himself shaking his head, gripping at his temples with both hands. He belonged with the Foot — it was the only home, the only family he had ever had. Ever needed. Ever wanted.

He forced himself not to think about the other turtles as he made his way down to street level, and vanished into the shadows of the streets. He needed to settle his thoughts with something simple — something clean and ordinary.

He needed to go beat the crap out of someone, he thought with a grin.

On the rooftops, moving swiftly against the cold wind, he felt the cares of his life slipping away as if they were blowing off his skin. His eyes roamed across the streets as he leapt from roof to roof, watching for someone out at this hour that was clearly up to no good.

Occasionally he glanced over his shoulder. Those two ninja were following him as usual, but at a distance. He supposed he should be glad that they were keeping far enough away that they wouldn't step on his toes.

The streets had been a little less crime-riddled lately, he realized. Maybe it was because he had been pouncing on so many muggers, rapists and kidnappers that there simply weren't a lot left once he put them in the hospital. Or maybe they were getting smart, and avoiding the area where they were likely to be attacked by the shadowy figure wielding twin sai. Maybe he should start branching out, finding new areas to patrol…

He crouched on a rooftop for awhile, surveying the expanse of the streets under him. Not much to observe, except for a yellow van that kept driving around in circles, as if searching for something. He kept an eye on that one, just in case its driver tried to snatch someone, but they seemed content to just drive from street to street, before finally vanishing to the west shortly after midnight.

He huffed a frustrated breath, and sat back on his heels. Maybe it was just a bad night.

Then he heard someone sobbing from a few streets away — loud, hysterical sobs. He stood quickly and leaped across the street, catching himself on a fire escape before running and jumping again.

The sobbing had grown louder by the time he arrived, joined by someone shouting "Shut up!" at the top of his voice. When he peered over the edge of the roof, he could see a lumpy man down below, with a beer gut and bulging arm muscles, dragging a small woman along by her arm. She was the one crying, and feebly pulling at him as she stumbled alongside him. And if Raphael squinted, he could make out a splotch of darkened skin next to her eye.

Raphael grinned. It looked like he was going to add "abusive husbands" to his list of targets.

He waited until they had passed the building, so he could land and strike from behind, making it less likely that they would see him. The street was dark but not that dark — if he landed in front, they'd get an eyeful of him. Behind, and the light would be behind him, obscuring what he looked like.

He landed lightly on the sidewalk, and took two steps forward before cracking his sai's pommel into the guy's shoulder, making his arm go limp for a moment. The sobbing woman was released, stumbling back from her husband. The man uttered a yelp and wheeled around, his eyes bloodshot and his breath stinking of whiskey.

"Mind yer own business, creep!" he roared.

"I'm makin' this my business," Raphael said darkly. "You got a problem with that?"

The man snarled and threw a punch that Raphael easily evaded, hitting him in the elbow hard enough to almost break the arm. This guy had big muscles but no real skill in fighting, and he saw nothing Raphael was dishing out coming — not the strike to the gut, or the fist to the jaw, not the kick to the knee. He fell howling to the ground, rolling around and clutching his knee. Another hit and he fell silent.

For a moment Raphael loomed over him, wondering if he should give the guy a few more kicks just for good measure.

"Please don't!" the woman shrieked, crawling towards the semi-conscious hulk on the ground.

Raphael hesitated as he heard that, and backed quickly away as the woman moved past him. Tears were pouring down her face, staining her cheeks with mascara — and, Raphael hoped, obscuring her vision so she couldn't see his green skin or turtle head.

"Don't hurt him, you — you freak!" she sobbed, curling up against her groaning husband. "Get away from us! _Get away!"_

Raphael stared at her in disbelief, secrecy forgotten for the moment. His eyes moved from the black eye forming on her face to the man still sprawled on the pavement. The man had hit her — hit her hard enough for her bruises to be visible to the world — and was dragging her through the streets against her will.

He had expected her to be glad that someone had stopped her husband from hurting her was she angry with him? What did she want?

He scuttled back from the streetlight, the woman's crying following him as he leaped back onto the side of the nearest building, and thence onto the building tops. Instead of feeling satisfaction from a job well done, he felt depressed, a little angry at the ingratitude, and more confused than ever.

Those feelings clung to him as he returned to the Foot Clan's headquarters, his two shadows following him at a safe distance. As he made his way to Master Shredder's throne room, he put the screaming woman out of his mind. He had more than enough to think about already.


	31. Chapter 31

The Foot Clan was on high alert for the next week — all ninja deployed into the field were ordered to keep an eye out for the rat and his three turtles, and Karai led nightly missions to scout what she deemed to be likely places where they might be. Raphael had no idea what those places were, but they all seemed to amount to nothing, judging by her sour expressions when she returned.

Master Shredder soon made it clear that he was humoring Karai by allowing her to go on these missions. "New York," he informed Raphael, "is too large a place for even the Foot Clan to locate four individuals who are skilled ninja. They will reveal themselves in time, and we will have them then."

Raphael thought back to when Master Shredder had offered the other three turtles a place in the Foot, and wondered what he meant by "have them." But he knew that much, that Karai's missions were failures and likely would continue failing until Master Shredder ordered her to stop wasting time.

Still, he couldn't help feeling frustration that he had been effectively grounded. Not just from the search for Hamato Yoshi and his turtles, but from any missions whatsoever. He had been scheduled to go on one only a few days after the battle with the other turtles, but Master Shredder had informed him that another ninja would be taking his place. Raphael would be remaining at the headquarters.

He began to wonder if Master Shredder was doubting him, keeping him close to make sure he didn't do anything suspicious. He knew that Karai thought he was even more untrustworthy now — she spent too much time unblinkingly staring at him to think otherwise — but he was used to her doubting and undermining him. If Master Shredder doubted him… doubted his loyalty to the Foot…

He didn't want to think about that. It just reminded him of that nightmare, of the blood and the pain, of being stabbed by the jonin for a betrayal that he didn't even understand.

It didn't help that his mind often went back to his encounters with Bo and Swords. No matter how hard he tried to shake it off, their words to him — urging him to leave, telling him they had been searching for him — kept flitting back into his head and sticking there. He wanted to know what they meant, but he also felt that thinking too much about them was dangerous.

But that wasn't the only thing that worried him. For the past two weeks, he hadn't dreamed of Mother at all.

His sleep had been all but dreamless during that time — or perhaps he had dreams, but could not recall them. Not once did he find himself in a spring garden rich with flowers and sunlight, not once did he find Mother waiting for him among the ponds and trees. There was only shallow fitful sleep, which he found himself avoiding more and more.

Where had she gone? Why had she gone? She had told him once _"No matter what you do, I am always looking after you, my precious child. Always."_ So where was she now?

His nerves began to fray as the days went by. He had never realized how dependent he was on Mother, and the comfort and rest that his visits with her brought. Without her, he felt more isolated and lonely than ever, and he began to feel… unstable. As though he were walking a bridge that could collapse at any moment.

Well, that and his temper began to flare up more and more often. The other day he had openly snarled at a woman in the dining hall who had stared at him too long, sending her scuttling down the line to avoid him.

Somehow, Raphael's life was coming apart at the seams, and he didn't know how to fix it.

* * *

The night air was colder than ever, with the sharp scent of frost blowing in from the north. The windows and lights of New York City shone like pale stars in the distance, perhaps to make up for the lack of stars in the cloudy sky above. Far off, a siren rang out and faded away.

Raphael drank it in, and sighed. He had missed his nightly excursions.

He hadn't gone on one for almost two weeks, ever since he had tried to rescue the abused woman. The incident had shaken him on some level — he wasn't sure why — and he found himself wondering what he should do the next time he saw something like that. Probably beat the abuser anyway, he concluded. The guy deserved it, even if his victim had a problem with that.

He rested on a ledge, looking out at the alleys and streets for a sign of something — anything — that looked amiss. It had been a quiet-ish night, possibly because the police had been around recently and anyone up to no good had scattered. Raphael sat down on the edge, dangling his legs off into space and waiting for someone to pass by.

Then he saw her.

She was one of the prettiest girls he had seen… although admittedly most of the girls he saw were masked and dressed in unisex ninja garb, so he wasn't usually able to gauge their attractiveness. Her fair skin almost glowed under the street lamps, and her long hair was the color of flames. She was walking a little unsteadily down the street — probably tipsy, Raphael thought — and swinging her purse from one hand.

Probably a college girl, he guessed, coming home from a party or a night out. She'd make it to the bus, get home, collapse into bed and probably be mildly hungover for classes the next day.

Then a sudden motion caught his eye, a few buildings down from the flame-haired girl. It was hard to tell at first, but he thought he saw someone lurking in the alley behind the trash cans. He leaped from the ledge to the rooftop and ran closer, his eyes peering into the shadows below him.

There was a young man down there, about the same age as the girl, lurking in the shadows so he couldn't be seen from the street. He was holding a baseball bat in one hand, which he twirled idly with the surety of someone who knows how to hit hard with it.

And the girl was going to pass right by him.

A grin split Raphael's face. This was exactly what he needed — he doubted this girl would have a problem with him messing up the guy who was planning to rob or rape her. The guy wouldn't have a chance to do either, if Raphael had anything to do with it. He waited until the girl had almost teetered over to where the young man was crouched, her unsteady steps too slow for her to get away effectively. Plus, she was wearing heeled boots, so she probably couldn't run. She was just lucky that Raphael was there.

He dropped silently behind the young man, one of his sai already in his hand. He'd give the thug a sporting chance, and actually let him have the first punch — but after that, it was fair game…

"Get him!"

Suddenly a heavy shape hammered into Raphael's shell, knocking him forward onto his knees. Before he had a chance to recover, something long and hard cracked against the back of his neck, throwing him forward on his hands and sending stars spinning past his eyes.

"I got him down! Quick, before he gets up—"

Raphael let out a muffled roar and tried to throw the heavy body off of him, his hand scrabbling at the muscular arm that had just been thrown around his neck. A loud "Ow!" rang out in his ear, but instead of drawing back, his attacker threw his other arm around Raphael, yanking his head backwards.

Two more shapes crashed into him, and Raphael found himself being trapped by a cage of muscled limbs and heavy bodies, pressing him down to the filthy alley floor by sheer weight. He strained up against them, groaning angrily at being restrained like this, his limbs trembling as he tried to throw them off, tried to break free of the arms and legs scrabbling to hold him—

"Casey, a little help here!" one of the voices called out.

Out of the corner of his eye, Raphael saw the mugger racing across the alley toward him, his dark hair flopping in his eyes as he flung himself down and twisted Raphael's arm behind his shell. The turtle bared his teeth, wishing he were close enough to bite the little thug—

Then he felt something hard pressing against his throat, pushing against his trachea until he started to feel dizzy. They were trying to knock him out, he thought wildly — or suffocate him, whichever came first. A hand clamped on the back of his neck, pushing his head forward. With a loud growl, Raphael tensed every muscle in his neck and shoulders, pushing back against the hand.

"Guys, it's not working. He's not going down," a familiar voice said.

Bo.

Raphael's eyes snapped open as he realized what was happening here. Three bodies tackling him — it had to be the three other turtles. And the mugger — the human guy with the hockey mask who had come to the battle with them —

He snarled again, heaving against the layer of bodies on top of him, feeling them lift from the ground as he tried. But his limbs were getting more tired with every effort — soon he wouldn't be able to move at all.

"Raphael," Nunchaku said in his ear — he recognized the voice now. "You don't gotta be so angry — just calm down and we can talk this out, okay?"

"Talk— this—" Raphael grunted, trying his best to headbutt the Turtle behind him.

Suddenly some of the weight lifted, and Raphael tried once again to push himself out from under the people hanging on to him. Then he heard the sound of a sword being unsheathed, a slow deliberate metallic sound that rang out across the alley.

"I didn't want to do this, Raphael," the voice of Swords said from somewhere above him. "I know it's a cliche, but this really does hurt me more than it does you."

Raphael stared up with baleful eyes at the turtle standing above him with sword in hand. Then the hilt came down on his head with a crack, and he slumped down to the pavement, blackness encroaching on the edges of his vision. The last thing he heard before slipping into unconsciousness was the red-haired girl calling, "Quick, get him into the van!"


	32. Chapter 32

Leonardo liked to think he had a fairly well-developed sense of right and wrong — a moral compass that had never failed him in his short life. Even when he wasn't sure what he should do, he knew very well what he shouldn't do — what it would be wrong to do.

This felt wrong to him.

Raphael was still limp and unresponsive as his brothers slid him into April's waiting van, and clambered in along with Casey. Silently they formed a ring around Raphael's body, their hands gripping their weapons, just in case the unconscious Turtle woke before they could get him back to their apartment.

"You didn't hit him too hard or somethin', did you?" Mikey said worriedly. "He hasn't got a combustion, has he?"

"Concussion," Donnie said, bending over Raphael. "And no, I don't think he does." He pulled up Raphael's upper eyelid, and a golden-brown eye stared at them for a second until Donnie let go. "His pupils are normal sizes and responsive to light. I'm betting he'll wake up in an hour or so."

The van went over a bump in the road, and Raphael's head lolled to the side, resting lightly against Donnie's leg. Leo crouched down beside his lost brother, watching Raphael for even a twitch of awareness, the faintest hint that he was regaining consciousness. He was going to be very dangerous when he woke up, especially if they hadn't restrained him. His behavior both times they had met him had been wild, almost savage.

"Is he always that friendly?" April called over her shoulder.

"That was better'n the first time," Mikey said despondently. "He wasn't tryin' to stab us this time."

"We jumped on him before he could," Donnie reminded him. "If he had seen us coming…"

Leo didn't want to think about what would have happened if he had seen them coming. For one thing, he knew that they would never have gotten another opportunity to trap Raphael — he would have figured out their plan, and skittered away back to the Foot Clan before they could catch him. They might have never had another chance to speak to him if that had happened.

And they did need to talk to him. Not just a few passing words in the middle of a battle, but a real conversation once he had calmed down from whatever frenzy he had been in. They needed to see him for who he really was, whatever he was, not just the wild-eyed, screaming creature they had encountered in their one battle with him. And for that, they needed time. Time to learn. Time to plan. Time to make him think.

They had to make the best of this opportunity. They couldn't waste the little time they had with Raphael, because they might not have much more.

"I don't like this," Donnie said suddenly.

"What?" Leo said.

Donnie gestured at Raphael, his still face and limp limbs. "This plan. I don't like it. It doesn't feel right."

"I—I know how you feel, but we can't let—"

"Leo, stop being the dutiful son for one moment and think about what we're doing," Donnie said in a hissed whisper. "Technically, we just assaulted Raphael, kidnapped him, and are planning to hold him against his will."

"I know." Leo wanted to shrivel under Donnie's fierce scrutiny, but forced himself to remain stoic.

The truth was, he was wondering just how far his father's desperation for Raphael would push him. Upon hearing April's idea for luring their lost brother into the open, Splinter had devised the plan they were enacting — it was simple and straightforward, almost too much so. All they needed to do was locate Raphael, and his vigilante activities would distract him long enough for his brothers to pin him down.

They had spent the next week attempting to put the plan into action, until Leo had begun to wonder if it was even going to work, or whether Raphael had gotten wise to their plan before even showing his face. Or, perhaps even worse, whether the Shredder was keeping Raphael close by, thinking he might have been disloyal. Leo didn't know what Raphael's standing in the Foot Clan was, but a chill rolled through him at the thought of what that maniac might do if he believed Raphael was a traitor.

April had spent every evening that week walking down different city blocks that the vigilante had been known to patrol, with Casey prowling behind her, and Leo, Mikey and Donnie lurking behind him. But no luck for a long while — and Leo was just about to give up and start formulating a new plan when they saw a dark figure landing behind Casey, a pair of glittering sai at the ready.

The van hit another bump in the road, and a faint moan came from Raphael, as if protesting his treatment. Don slumped down against the wall, steadying Raphael's head so it wouldn't flop around as they drove.

"So how can you be okay with this?" he said in a low voice.

"It's our only chance," Leo said. "The only opportunity we might have. Father—"

"Father is desperate, Leo, and desperate people sometimes make the wrong decisions," Don said. "Can't you think for yourself?"

Leo bristled, his lip lifting in a snarl. "I am thinking for myself, thanks. But as wrong as this feels, in one thing I agree with Father — we need to speak to Raphael. Really speak to him. He needs to know he doesn't have to stay with the Foot Clan — that we want him, we care about him and that he belongs with us, not them."

"Maybe it's too late, Leo," Donnie said quietly. "If his behavior towards us is anything to go by, he might be too damaged by them to come back to us."

"I don't believe that, Donnie."

"Is that you talking," Donnie asked softly, "or Father?"

Leo grimaced. "Me."

Don sighed and looked down at Raphael's sleeping face. He looked oddly peaceful now, a stark contrast to his frantic eyes and furious behavior the previous time that they had seen him. But Leo knew that when he woke, his first impulse would be to attack them, violently. They had to get him home before that happened.

"Has it occurred to you that kidnapping him might not be the best way to win his trust?" Don said.

"Yes, it's occurred to me," Leo said quietly. "But I didn't hear you volunteering any other ideas for how to make him listen to what we had to say."

"I tried to make him listen before you did," Donnie said defensively. "He punched me in the stomach and tried to slash open my face."

"Well, he won't be able to do any of those things this time," Leo said, grimly settling back against the side of the van.

Raphael's face tensed, as though he could hear his brothers arguing and was disturbed by the sound. Donnie's hand immediately went to his bo, in case someone needed to render their brother unconscious a second time, but Raphael's expression smoothed out, becoming peaceful and softer once again. Leo breathed a sigh of relief, glad that a battle wouldn't be breaking out in the back of a moving vehicle.

"How is what we're doing any different from what the Foot Clan did to Father, Leo?" Donnie said softly.

Leo closed his eyes. "There are two ways that it's different," he said at last. "First, we want to give him a choice — another option. Second… when he's heard what we have to say, we're going to let him go." His words seemed to echo through the van, and he felt a twist in his heart at the idea.

"Guys," Casey's voice suddenly piped up. "We've got company."

He pointed at a nearby rooftop, where two dark shadows were flitting past, obscuring lights as they moved. Leo's heart jumped into his throat. Someone had been following Raphael — and now they were following the van.

"April, slow down," he said, placing a hand on his katana. "Mikey, you're with me. Donnie, you stay with Raph and make sure that no matter what, they don't get to him. If he wakes up, keep him restrained."

"Sure, leave me with the easy job," Donnie muttered.

As the van slowed, Leo threw the door and sprang out, hearing Mikey just a step behind him. They had to get rid of these two Foot ninja, or Raphael would be the least of their problems.


	33. Chapter 33

The two Foot ninja saw them coming, and Leo saw the glint of steel in their hands as the two Turtles leaped up onto the rooftop. Both had swords — one a katana, the other a wakizashi — and it was clear from their stances that they were ready to use them.

Leo faced the one with the katana, and unsheathed his own. This shouldn't be hard, he told himself — after all, they had managed to defeat dozens a few weeks ago. But in the back of his mind was the chilly fear that there were more than a couple of them following the van — that they might have reinforcements on the way. He and Mikey had to dispatch these Foot ninja right away.

And what if Raphael woke up? Could Donnie keep him restrained by himself, or would the biggest danger be to those inside the van? No, Leo had to deal with the problem before Raphael had a chance to cause any trouble.

Mikey sprang forwards, his nunchaku wrapping tightly around the blade of the wakizashi and wrenching it from its wielder's hands. At the same time, Leo struck out with both blades, clashing with the other katana in a spray of sparks. He could see his enemy's eyes — angry and fierce, determined. And behind those emotions was something else. Fear. Probably fear of what would happen if he failed to bring back information on the Foot's enemies.

"Whoa!" Mikey yelped as a shuriken spun by his face.

"Careful, Mikey!" Leo said, deflecting a blow towards his shoulder.

"Leo, where'd these guys come from?" Mikey said, leaping out of the way of a thrust tanto.

"They must have been following Raphael, and saw what we did," Leo grunted, kicking his opponent in the stomach. The man doubled over, but recovered far faster than Leo was comfortable with, dropping into a crouch with a kunai clutched in his hand.

The mutant turtle grimaced as he prepared to deflect the thrown knife. This was taking too long. Raphael could wake up at any time — and given how it had taken four of them to subdue him without hurting him, he wasn't confident that Donnie and Casey could handle the situation alone. There was only one part of this entire disaster that Leo was comfortable with — at least Shredder would know that Raphael had been abducted, rather than leaving of his own accord. If he had thought that, then Raphael's life would have been in grave danger…

He slashed the kunai out of the air as it flew towards him, and leaped nimbly over the head of the enemy ninja. He clamped his arms around the man's throat in a sleeper hold, squeezing his trachea tightly until his arms fell slack at his sides. When the turtle released him, the ninja slumped to the ground and lay still.

Mikey had just sent his opponent flying with a final crack of his nunchaku to the man's face. He skidded across the rooftop and landed in a heap of limbs.

"Turtles 2, evil ninjas 0," he said with a grin.

"Let's get out of here," Leo panted. "They might not be out for long, and we want to be home when that happens."

They leaped down the building's side, and ran swiftly back towards the van and its open door. As he moved, Leo glanced at the rooftops around them — he didn't see any more dark shapes following them, but he would keep a watch as they traveled anyway.

"How's Raphael?" he asked as he climbed in.

"Still sleeping like a baby," Casey said.

Despite that comforting statement, Donnie was still crouched grimly over their brother's still body, his bo in his hand. "How many were there?" he asked.

"Only two," Mikey said. "But they were feisty."

"April, we need to get as far as we can from here as fast as we can," Leo said, leaning over the back of the driver's seat.

"On it," April said breathlessly. The wheels squealed as the van lurched forward, and swerved sharply onto an adjoining street.

Leo collapsed on one of the seats, opposite Donnie and near Raphael's feet. "That was close," he muttered. He spared a look at his unconscious brother; Donnie was holding Raphael's head again to keep it from jolting to and fro, and had set his bo aside.

"That was too close," Donnie said. "We probably should have known that Raphael wouldn't be alone."

Leo felt himself bristle slightly at Donnie's words. His brother sometimes seemed to think that the ability to build computers from spare parts meant that he knew better than Leo when it came to matters of leadership. Whenever he thought Leo had miscalculated or made a bad decision, he never hesitated to pounce on it. And though he said "we," his statement sounded suspiciously like another criticism.

But the infuriating thing was that sometimes he was right — and in this case, he was. Leo knew that he should have checked the adjoining rooftops after they captured Raphael, just in case other Foot were nearby. He had been so distracted by Raphael that he had blinded himself to what was going on around him.

And it had been a terrible error. If Casey hadn't noticed the two ninja pursuing them, the Foot would have learned where the Turtles were staying. They would have attacked the Turtles, Splinter, Casey and April, and left them all dead. Leo's stomach clenched as he realized the enormity of his error, and resolved to do better next time.

"I'm hungry," Mikey announced suddenly.

"How can you think of food at a time like this?" Donnie asked incredulously.

"Well, I was thinkin' about how long we're going to have Raphael with us," Mikey said defensively. "And if he's gonna be with us very long, we'll need to feed him. And that made me think—"

"Let's focus on getting him back home and secured first," Leo said. "We can focus on food after that."

He looked back down at Raphael's still face, and felt a stab of misery as he thought of his brother's frenzied reaction to seeing them. Did he hate his family that much, without ever having really met them? What could have made him so angry just at the sight of them? Did he somehow know that he had been left behind before they mutated, and he felt betrayed by his family?

And Leo thought of their father, in hiding in the apartment, meditating as he waited for his sons to return home, with or without Raphael. This confrontation, no matter what the outcome, would be hard on them all.

The van veered around a corner, and slowed in front of a somewhat ramshackle store with boards over the windows. They were home.


	34. Chapter 34

Raphael was still limp and unresponsive as his brothers dropped him onto the bed, a heavy metal frame with a naked mattress resting on its springs. He hadn't moved or made a sound since they had extracted him from the van, and the sight of him so lifeless made Leo vaguely uneasy. From what little he had seen of Raphael, it seemed… unnatural for him to be sprawled out there, silent and still.

Of course, his appearance unnerved Leo in general. Maybe it was the Foot Clan's emblem emblazoned on Raphael's belt and the red scarf around his neck. Or maybe it was the black mask he was wearing — almost like a dark parody of the masks his brothers wore everyday. It was as if Shredder had deliberately perverted his appearance.

"I'll take his hands. Mikey, Donnie, you take his feet," Leo said grimly.

He dragged a padlocked chain across the floor and began winding it around Raphael's arms, starting at the elbow and finishing at his wrists. As he wound it around his brother's limbs, he also wove it through the solid iron headboard, securing his brother to the bed he was lying in. Once he was chained to it, he wouldn't be able to escape until someone unlocked his chains and let him go free.

Mikey and Donnie were doing the same thing at the end of the bed, firmly chaining Raphael's ankles together and securing them to the foot of the bed. Donnie's disapproval was still evident in his face, but he was reluctantly doing what Leo and Splinter had ordered him to do.

"Done," Mikey said, wiping his hands on his thighs. "What do we do now?"

"We wait for him to wake up," Leo said somberly. "And then… Father will know what to do then."

Donnie's face was a murky mixture of perturbation and irritation. "Where is Father?" he asked. "This was all his idea, so shouldn't he be here for this?"

"He's meditating," Leo said. "He… he's preparing to deal with a lot of anger when Raphael wakes up."

"I'm not surprised," Donnie muttered.

Just then, April limped into the room on bare feet, her expressive green eyes anxiously looking at the dark figure tied to the bed. "Is he going to be okay?" she asked.

"Physically, yes. Donnie says he should wake up in an hour or so," Leo said. "The rest… we're going to have to see. How are your feet?"

She smiled wryly. "My blisters have blisters. It serves me right for not wearing sneakers tonight — I must have walked by Casey fifty times before Raphael showed up."

"Well, your idea worked," Donnie said, crossing his arms. "It took a week of trying, but he took the bait." He grimaced. "For better or worse…"

"My cardio must be amazing right now," April sighed. She looked at the three green faces around her, and then back down the stairs. "I'm going to order some pizza, guys. It seems like this is going to be a long night for us all."

"You shouldn't wait up, April," Leo said. "We don't want you to do badly on your classes."

"I only have one tomorrow, and it's an easy one," she said, shrugging. "Besides, I don't think I could sleep much thinking about you guys dealing with… all this, by yourselves."

"We're not by ourselves," Mikey pointed out. "We have Casey."

"Casey's asleep on the couch outside, and I don't think he's waking up until morning," April stated, smiling. "Look, you're stuck with me, guys. I'm going downstairs to order the pizzas, and you can get some protein in your systems before you deal with Raphael."

"Thank you, April," Leo said warmly. "We really can't thank you enough for all you've done for us."

"Should we save some pizza for Raphael?" Mikey said curiously.

"What?" Donnie said.

"Well, he's gotta eat, right? We're not gonna starve him or anything, so why not feed him some pizza?"

"I guess we could try," Donnie said dubiously. "Knives and forks only, though. I'm not comfortable getting that close to his mouth. He might bite." He paused. "We're going to need straws for him to drink through, for as long as he's lying down. I don't think we can just pour liquids into his open mouth."

"I think there might be some in the kitchen," April said.

April gingerly went down the stairs, muttering about boots with heels, and the three brothers could hear her speaking into the phone downstairs. Mikey perked up slightly as he heard the words "four pizzas," as nothing put him in a better mood than his favorite food. Leo just wished that his own mood could be improved by something as simple as pizza.

With that, Leo went back into the next room, where Raphael was still lying still, his hands bound over his head. He hadn't been lying when he told Raphael that hitting him was painful — he had spent so long searching for Raphael that having to strike his brother unconscious just so they could speak was agonizing.

But there hadn't been any choice. Raphael had been lashing out like a wild thing, his face contorted by rage. Even if they hadn't been planning to drag him back to the apartment, leaving him conscious wasn't an option. The Foot would come looking for him, and he would have alerted them to the other turtles' presence. One way or another, Raphael had to be unconscious.

But it didn't make Leo feel any better.

He looked at Raphael for a few minutes before noticing that with his arms raised, his brother's head was tilted back at an uncomfortable angle. The edge of his shell was pushing against the back of his skull.

Leo slipped off to the bedroom he was sharing with Donnie and Mikey, and removed the battered pillow from the cot he had been sleeping on. Returning to the room Raphael was in, he gently raised his brother's head with one hand and slipped the pillow underneath it with the other. Raphael moaned softly as his head settled onto the soft lump, looking almost childlike.

Mikey appeared behind Leo, and put a hand around his older brother's shoulders. "Don't worry, Leo," he said soothingly. "Raphael's gonna listen to us once he wakes up."

"I wish I could believe that, Mikey."

"You have to," Mikey said. "You gotta convince Raphael to listen, and how's he gonna do that if nobody thinks he will?"

Leo smiled slightly. "You've got a point, Mikey." His smile faded as he looked back at Raphael. "I think we're all going to have to do our part to talk to him, because we're only going to have him for a short time before we release him again."

"Well, I know how I'm going to try," Mikey said confidently. "And I know it'll work."

"I hope it does, Mikey," Leo said.

He watched as Mikey left the room, confidence in every line of his body. Then Leo sat on the edge of the bed, resting his head in his hands, and waited for his lost brother to awaken.


	35. Chapter 35

The first thing Raphael felt was a headache — a throbbing dull ache that seemed to run all through his skull. He moaned softly, his eyes fluttering open as he wondered if he was getting sick.

As his eyes opened, he wondered if he was dreaming — a dream of something other than Mother, obviously. Instead of his small room with the white walls and sparse furnishings, he was in a room he didn't recognize — slightly mildewed, with peeling paint and curtains hung on the windows. He was lying on a bed, with his arms stretched over his head.

And Swords was sitting there beside him.

Automatically, Raphael tried to lurch upright towards the other turtle, but was yanked back as his arms refused to move. Grunting with pain, he looked up. A heavy chain had been wrapped around his lower arms several times, and had been wound through the bedframe too. They wouldn't budge.

"You—" he gasped.

"I'm glad to see you're awake," Swords said. "I was starting to worry that I'd hit you too hard."

"Let me go!" Raphael snarled.

"Not just yet," Swords replied, infuriatingly calm. "First—"

Raphael fell back against the mattress, his chest heaving as he looked around the room in growing desperation. There had to be some way out of this place — some way he could get back to the Foot Clan. But he could feel other chains pulling at his legs, pulling at his arms, weighing him down until he could barely move anything except his head. With a loud grunt, he strained against the chains binding his arms, feeling them pressing painfully into his flesh.

"Raphael, don't struggle like that. You're going to hurt yourself," Swords said, sounding concerned.

"Then let me go, dammit!"

"Raphael, listen to me — we're just trying to —"

 _"_ _Shut up!"_

Raphael continued struggling against the chains for what seemed like hours, but he knew was probably only minutes. The chains seemed to get tighter the more he struggled, pressing painfully on his bruised skin until he could barely feel his fingers. Still, he kept twisting and straining, praying that his aching muscles would eventually break through the chains.

Swords watched the whole thing, his eyes growing sadder as he watched the other turtle struggle. Finally Raphael gave up, collapsing limply on the bed, his breath rasping in his throat, sweat beading his skin, his brown eyes fixed on the ceiling above him.

"My name's Leonardo, Raphael," Swords said. "You can call me Leo."

Raphael stared at him balefully. "Why don't you just kill me?" he said.

"Because we don't want to kill you."

"Why not? I'm your enemy."

"No, you're not. You're our brother."

"You're not my brother," Raphael said heatedly. "Not in any way that matters. You don't know me — you don't know anything about me."

"That's true, I don't," Leo said, crossing his arms. "But I'd like to know, if you'd tell me."

Raphael just glared at him, his fingers clutching at the chains. Then he turned his face away from Leo, and stared bleakly at the curtains beside his bed.

"You're my brother, Raphael, whether you like it or not. I don't want you hurt, let alone dead. And even if you weren't my brother, I wouldn't kill you."

"Why not?"

"I don't kill."

That got Raphael's attention. His head turned sharply towards Leo, with an incredulous expression on his face. "Yes, you do. You have to."

"No, I don't."

"Being a ninja means killin'. No hesitation, no weakness, no mercy."

Leo's brow furrowed, and a strange, pained expression crossed his face. "Well, I must not be a very good ninja," he said at last. "Because I've been getting by very well without killing any of my enemies."

Raphael stared at the other turtle's face, baffled. He had the strange feeling that Leo wasn't lying — his eyes were steady and clear, not even a waver in his voice when he spoke. Yet the idea of being a ninja without killing was something that Raphael had never even thought about — Master Shredder had always praised him for his kills in the field.

Then again, Leo had defeated Karai and left her to live. He had thrown shuriken at Master Shredder and let him live as well. Raphael stared narrowly at the other turtle, searching his face for some answer to why he would do something like that. Letting his enemies live was idiotic — it meant they could come back for him later, stronger and more vicious than before. Letting that happen was weakness — and weakness, Master Shredder had drilled into him, was never to be tolerated. Only strength — the strength to eliminate all threats without mercy.

"Why?" he said at last.

"Because our father taught me that life is precious, including the lives of your enemies."

Raphael snorted, letting his head fall back against the mattress. "So you carry a pair of katana so you won't kill anybody? That makes a lotta sense."

Leo shrugged. "Like I said, I've been managing without killing anyone. I can fight with my swords without killing."

Raphael's headache felt like it was both fading and getting worse. Listening to Leo was throwing his mind into a whirl — he understood every word the other turtle said, but Leo might as well have been speaking another language for how much Raphael understood him.

It made no sense. Leo was a powerful fighter — he had defeated Raphael in single combat, and had led his brothers to drive back Master Shredder. But he wasn't willing to use his strength to its fullest. He held himself back. He was just going to accumulate more and more enemies, more and more danger, until one of them finally destroyed him — and his weakness would keep him from killing the enemy to save himself.

"And I know you can too," Leo said quietly.

"Can what?"

"Fight without killing." Leo shifted on the bed, looking down on Raphael's face. "Donnie got me some newspaper articles about all the criminals you've been beating up for months. You attacked them, sometimes pretty brutally — not that some didn't richly deserve it. A number ended up in the hospital with broken bones. But you never killed one, no matter what crime they were guilty of." He leaned down to the floor, and lifted up a gleaming sai, weighing it in his hand. "Even though with these, it would be easy to stab someone to death."

"That's — that's different," Raphael said hesitantly.

"How?"

"That wasn't… they were all small fry. I didn't need to kill 'em to stop 'em. Besides, that was just me doin' what I wanted, not about bein' a ninja."

"But I thought you said you didn't show any mercy."

Raphael stared at him with a hint of loathing, then turned away again, the chains clinking as he moved his shoulders. His breath was coming a little faster as he tried to brush aside the confusion that Leo's words had inspired in him — that same horrible unsteadiness that had enraged him so much during their first battle.

He wanted Leo to shut up, to stop saying things that chipped away at everything he knew and believed in. But he had the feeling that nothing would silence Leo, or anyone else with him. He was at their mercy, and he didn't see any immediate way out.

He gritted his teeth, and began to strain against his restraints again.


	36. Chapter 36

It had been another fruitless night.

Karai felt anger stewing inside her as she stepped into the headquarters, her chin-length black hair blowing across her face. It was nearly three o'clock in the morning, and she hadn't found a trace of Hamato Yoshi and his three turtle sons. Earlier that day, the Foot had received reports of mutants by the docks, and had she had scoured the area for any sign of their enemies.

Nothing. Nothing at all. If Yoshi and his turtles had been there before, they weren't there now. And now she was tired, sore and irritable, storming her way through the squad of ninja she had brought with her to the docks.

Her grandfather likely wouldn't allow her to hunt his enemies much longer if she didn't produce something for her efforts. She already suspected that he considered her nightly searches to be completely pointless, but so far had allowed her to put her anger to good use. The Foot Clan had other fish to fry, though, and he would want her to focus on the clan's business rather than her own vendetta against Leonardo and his family.

By the time she reached her grandfather's rooftop garden, her body was screaming out for sleep and rest. But she couldn't sleep until she had informed her grandfather of her failure, and accepted whatever decision he made about her future searches.

He was standing silhouetted against the night sky, his favorite hawk resting on one steel gauntlet. Koya screeched upon seeing Karai, and she wrinkled her nose at the bird's strident cry.

"Karai," her grandfather said, inclining his head. "Have you found any trace of Hamato Yoshi?"

She bowed. "No, grandfather. I was… unsuccessful."

He stroked the bird's feathers with his fingertips, before launching her into the air with a flick of his wrist. She soared overhead into the night sky, before swooping down at something scampering across the rooftop. Karai caught a glimpse of gray fur and a long wormlike tail. A common rat. The hawk swept down towards it, and there was a splash of blood and a loud squeak.

"Failure again," he said.

Karai grimaced. It was coming.

"You have wasted enough of the clan's time and resources on this search," Shredder said, watching as Koya flew back to her perch with the rat in her talons. Karai couldn't help but wonder if he had chosen this particular moment to kill the vermin, just to make a point.

"I only wished to destroy the enemies of the Foot Clan," she said.

"Hamato Yoshi will not be able to hide from us," Shredder predicted confidently. "But we will not need to find him. He will expose himself and his children to us in his own time. He will not be able to resist."

"How do you know this, Grandfather?"

She heard the smile in her grandfather's voice, the satisfaction that came with thinking of his old enemy dead at his feet. "Because we have Raphael," he said quietly. "He will never rest until he has stolen Raphael from us — and that will be his downfall. His desperation will drive him to risk everything in an effort to claim his son, and he will deliver himself into my hands." His eyes hardened into black pebbles. "And the last thing he will see before he dies will be that same son, serving his true master."

"And his other sons?"

"With time, they may be… compelled into the Foot Clan's service," Shredder said. "Raphael may again be useful in that pursuit."

He sounded pleased by the idea, but Karai was not. She felt her lip curling as she thought of three more mutant turtles infesting the Foot Clan, worming their way into her grandfather's favor. Raphael was bad enough, but she could only imagine how bad the others would be. Especially — she clenched her teeth — Leonardo.

She could tell that her grandfather had noticed her displeasure, but he said nothing about it. Her opinion on the matter meant nothing to him — if he wished for the Turtles to serve him, then the only opinion that mattered was his own. So he simply watched Koya feasting on the rat's flesh, as if imagining that she was gorging herself on Hamato Yoshi.

Then she heard the sound of footsteps behind her. Two genin rushed by, and immediately dropped to their knees before their master.

"What is this?" Shredder said.

"Master, we have failed you," one of them said, his voice trembling. "Raphael is… gone."

Karai's eyes widened, and she turned her head quickly to look at the two men. She had known — as had her grandfather — that Raphael was in the habit of sneaking out at night. She had no idea what he did when he was out, and cared even less. But despite his confidence in Raphael's loyalty, her grandfather had assigned two ninja to follow him on his nightly outings, just to make absolutely sure that the Turtle did not get ideas about leaving, and to track him down if he did.

But the news that he was gone… did that mean he had slipped his leash, either defeating or eluding his shadows?

Her grandfather's arm lashed out like a striking snake, dragging the errant ninja up to his face. "Gone? How?" he roared.

"Th-the other turtles," the ninja stammered. "They have him. He left our sight for only a moment, but when we caught up, he was in a van speeding away from the place?"

"And you did not follow?" Shredder growled. His grip tightened, and the claws cut easily through the ninja's uniform.

"W-we did, Master. We followed the van for several blocks, so that we could discover where he was being taken. But two of the other Turtles emerged from it and defeated us. When we regained consciousness, they were long gone," the man sniveled, bowing his head, expecting his master to strike him dead.

For a long moment, Shredder was still, absorbing what the ninja had said to him. Then with a snarl he buried his claws in the man's shoulder, sending him reeling back with blood spurting from two wounds. He collapsed to the ground, and the other ninja immediately darted forward to help him.

"Useless," her grandfather said in a low voice.

Karai took a step forward, her voice rising quickly, before the man had a chance to pass out. "How did Raphael leave with them?"

"I-I don't understand," the ninja said faintly.

"Was Raphael kidnapped, or did he leave with them of his own free will?" she elaborated.

"W-we didn't s-see."

Karai swiftly looked at her grandfather's back, his red cape whipping furiously in the wind. He was still again, but she could see the gears in his mind working furiously at the unanswered question of whether Raphael had chosen to leave with the other Turtles, or been taken by them. Whether he was still loyal, or whether he had chosen his family.

The Shredder slowly turned his head toward her. "Redouble efforts to find Hamato Yoshi and his Turtles. I want Raphael found and brought back here to me," he said in a low, vicious tone.

Despite the fatigue coursing through her body, Karai bowed. "It will be done, grandfather."

She turned sharply and walked from the rooftop, feeling a smile curving her lips. He had not said so, but she knew that doubts were now blooming in her grandfather's mind about Raphael's loyalties. He had been so sure that Raphael's family would not sway him from the Foot Clan, but now he was with them, and they had no way of knowing whether he had chosen to abandon his clan of his own free will.

Even if Raphael returned, she knew that it would not be easy for him to prove that he had not betrayed them. At best, he would be a prisoner. At worst, the Shredder would have his life.


	37. Chapter 37

Nearly half an hour had passed, and Raphael was still raging and tearing against his chains. His hips and shoulders ached with every twist or pull, but he kept straining, kept pushing, kept feeling his flesh bruising more with every passing moment. The bed frame under him groaned slightly as he pulled at it, and he began to wonder if it was flimsy enough that he would be able to pull parts of it loose…

"Would you stop it?" Leo said at last, sounding both alarmed and exasperated. "You're just going to hurt yourself!"

"Stop pretending you care!" Raphael snarled.

Leo responded by clamping his hands on Raphael's chest, pushing him down into the mattress until he was unable to move. He tried to move, straining against Leo's strong hands, but the other Turtle was leaning his entire body into pushing on Raphael's torso. Between that and the chains immobilizing his arms and legs, the only part of Raphael that could move was his head and neck.

"I do care, you idiot!" Leo shouted directly into his face. "If I didn't care, I would have let you rot with the Foot Clan instead of bringing you here!"

"By kidnapping me?" Raphael shouted back, straining up towards Leo.

"It was the only way we could get you to _listen!"_ Leo said angrily. "We tried! Donnie and I tried to talk to you before, but you tried to kill us for it! This was the only way we could make you pay attention to us!"

"I paid attention!" Raphael shouted. "I didn't wanna hear you!"

"Why not?"

Raphael gritted his teeth, and twisted his head away from Leo's penetrating brown eyes.

"Why not?" Leo repeated loudly, pressing down harder.

"You people make me confused!" Raphael erupted, his eyes blazing as he thrashed against Leo's hands. "You make me start thinkin' things I shouldn't!"

Leo didn't seem to know what to say in response to that. He blinked down at Raphael, the anger draining from his face to be replaced with confusion. Slowly he removed his hands from his brother's shoulders, watching for Raphael to start straining against his bonds again. When the other Turtle didn't move, he slowly sank down onto the edge of the bed.

"Like what?" Leo said quietly.

Raph shut his eyes tightly. He didn't want to have this conversation. He didn't want to think about the other Turtles — didn't want to think about what they should mean to him. Didn't want to think about what they had said, what they had been doing. Hell, he didn't want to think about what they fundamentally were — other mutant turtles, his brothers, who lived their whole lives far from the circles of the Foot Clan.

His brothers. Whom he should never have been separated from. And if he hadn't, he never would have been part of the Foot Clan… no, he didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to think about what his life with them would have been like… didn't want to think about what he wished they were to him.

A hollow ache formed in his chest, as fiercely as he tried to deny it was there. These people had kidnapped him. They were his enemies. The rat — their father — was the mortal enemy of his master. And yet — if things had been different, they would have been something else to him. Everything. It all formed into a thick, twisting muddle in his head, pulling at him until he felt like he was about to tear apart.

A strange sensation ran through him as that came to mind. Suddenly he had the feeling that if he looked too deeply in himself, he would find something painful, something that would tear him apart and leave him with nothing. He wanted to keep his face averted from that unseen thing for as long as possible… but when they were nearby, he could feel it rising inside him. He didn't want to look. He wanted things to stay the way they always had been. Safe and familiar.

"Look, we really didn't want things to be this way," Leo said quietly. "And we don't have much time to talk to you. Please, just listen to what we have to say. We want you to have a choice."

"You tie me up, and you say you want to give me a choice?" Raphael said. "Untie me, and maybe I'll listen."

A look of regret came over Leonardo's face. "If it were just us, I'd do that," he said quietly. "But I know if you decided to flee, you'd bring the Foot Clan back here. And not only are our other brothers here, but two humans who aren't a part of Oroku Saki's vendetta against us. I would risk my own life to make you listen to me, Raphael. But not theirs." He shifted on the bed, staring down at Raphael's face. "So I'm asking you to listen anyway. Just for a little while. Please."

It was on the tip of Raphael's tongue to refuse, to snarl that someone who had knocked him unconscious, kidnapped him and chained him up had no right to expect him to listen to anything. That for all his talk of not being Raphael's enemy, that was something only an enemy would do. He wanted to see Leo figuratively wither away under a rain of vitriol, being shown exactly how angry Raphael was.

But it was the quiet "please" that made him stop. It was a word he hadn't heard very often before — especially when someone wasn't begging for their life — and rarely aimed at him. He was a tool. A weapon. No one asked a sword to slay someone. No one cared about whether he wanted to do as he was told — there were only his orders to obey.

Leo must have seen the struggle in his eyes, because he repeated, "Please."

Raphael grunted, staring up at Leo with wary eyes.

The other Turtle seemed to take this as a tacit agreement. He rested his hands on his thighs and took a deep breath. "I don't really know where to start," he admitted with a hint of unhappiness. "Father — our father — knows more about this than I ever did."

"Then why ain't he talking to me?"

"He will — later," Leo said. "I—I don't really remember what happened before we mutated, but Father has told me all about what he saw and experienced. I know that there were four of us originally. Four brothers. We started out in a lab, but were stolen from it by Foot ninja, and our father tried to rescue us from them.

"In the process, we were doused by a mutagen that the Foot ninja also had stolen from the lab. But a stray cat got to you — it wanted to eat you alive. Father fought it hard in order to save you, even clawing out the cat's eye so it would let you go…"

A shiver ran through Raphael. Suddenly a brief, forgotten memory flashed through his mind — the memory of yellowed fangs against his tiny body and a pair of glaring slitted eyes. Fear. Blinding fear. And a large gray shape flying towards him, teeth gleaming in the faint light… it was only a shred of a memory, but it was enough.

He didn't know if Leonardo noticed his reaction, because the other Turtle continued speaking. "But… before Father could bring you back, the Foot ninja came back to get us. And… he had to pull the three of us — me, Donatello and Michelangelo — into the sewer to avoid them. You were… we didn't know where you were or what happened to you for so long, but now we know the Foot ninja must have—"

"They did," Raphael said stiffly. "They took me back with 'em, and I mutated."

Leo looked at him with sorrowful eyes. "Not a day went by when Father wouldn't mention you, or send us out to try to find you. You were constantly on his mind, and he never gave up hope that we would find you."

"Even though he's the one who left me behind?" Raphael asked acidly.

"He didn't want to!" Leo said passionately. "He wanted to save all four of us — and if the Foot ninja hadn't come just then, he would have brought you back to us." A wistful note crept into his voice, and he seemed to almost be talking to himself. "We all would have been back together, the way we were always meant to be."

Something in his voice struck a chord deep inside Raphael, and for a moment those forbidden thoughts came flooding back into his mind. About what it would be like to have his brothers, a family — about what his life would have been like if he had never been part of the Foot. Part of the thought was terrifying. He had never lived without the feeling of the Foot surrounding him, supporting him — it was everything he had wanted, striven for, everything that molded him into the warrior he now was. Being without the Foot was like stepping off the top of a building, with nothing but air under his feet.

But at the same time… he couldn't stop thinking about it.

"That isn't where you belong, Raphael," Leo said quietly. "Deep down you know it. You belong with us."

 _"_ _This is not where you belong."_ Mother's voice echoed through his mind, clear as a bell.

Raphael closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, feeling unwanted thoughts swarming through his mind like hornets. He had always known where he belonged — where he felt safe — but the longer Leo talked, the more unstable he began to feel, as if the ground under his feet was dissolving.


	38. Chapter 38

Raphael was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't hear footsteps coming up the stairs, and nearly jumped out of his shell when the door swung open with a bang. The two other Turtles — Bo and Nunchaku — were standing in the doorway, looking expectantly at Leo. Nunchaku's face was wreathed in smiles, and he was carrying a large plate, while Bo looked anxious and kind of grumpy, as if he didn't want to be in the same room as Raphael.

"Dinnertime!" Nunchaku sang out. "Breakfast, actually. I hope you're hungry, Raphael."

Leo sighed. "That is… our brother, Michelangelo," he explained. "Beside him is our other brother, Donatello."

"People call me Mikey, and him Donnie," Michelangelo said, coming closer. "Well, except Father. For some reason he never calls us by nicknames. Dunno why. Can I call you Raph?"

Raphael watched him warily, as if some wild and unpredictable animal had somehow broken into the room. He had previously questioned how Leonardo could be a ninja if he was unwilling to kill — the idea seemed like a blatant contradiction to his mind. But Mikey seemed like even more of a contradiction — he was the antithesis of what Raphael had been shown as a ninja, with his sunny demeanor, loud entry into the room, and chattering speech.

He knew Mikey could fight — he had seen him battle his way through a dozen Foot ninja when they had first met. But it didn't seem possible that the powerful ninja he had seen before could be the same person who was coming toward him with a wide, slightly silly grin and eyes alight with eagerness. Like a puppy meeting someone new.

"I saved some of last night's dinner 'specially for you," Mikey announced. "You like pizza, right?"

"Ain't had it," Raphael said bluntly.

Mikey's eyes widened. "Seriously? You have been deprived, bro."

"Mikey," Leo began to say, "maybe now's not a good time—"

"It's the perfect time, Leo. I heated it up in the oven so he wouldn't have to eat it cold. Good thing I did — nobody's first pizza should be cold," Mikey said severely.

Maybe Mikey was insane. That was a possibility, Raphael thought, rolling his eyes.

Leo apparently gave up on talking to his younger brother for the time being, rising from the bed and swiftly moving to the next room. Donatello followed him, and Raphael heard them speaking in hushed, slightly angry tones — though he had no idea what they were arguing about, and suspected he wasn't going to find out from either of them.

Mikey settled down on the bed beside him, and began cutting a piece of the pizza with a knife. "Donnie said I should feed you with a fork. He's worried that you might try to bite me," he said conversationally. "Besides, I don't think it's too easy to eat pizza lying down, you know? The cheese could slide off. But when you're not tied up, you should try eating it with your hands. It's all part of the experience."

He held the chunk of pizza out on the end of a fork, and Raphael debated inwardly about whether he should eat it or not. It might be drugged. Then again, they already had him chained to the bed — it wasn't as if immobilizing him would make any difference now.

Reluctantly he opened his mouth, and bit the pizza off the end of the fork. It was better than he expected — soft mellow cheese blending with a tangy tomato sauce, and a soft crust that kept it from being too gooey. He thought he tasted some kind of herbs in there, but wasn't sure what they were. He wasn't exactly an expert.

Mikey watched him with obviously bated breath, his eyes round and unblinking. It finally occurred to Raph that the other Turtle was waiting to hear what he thought. He swallowed.

"It's — good, I guess," he said gruffly.

A giddy smile crossed Michelangelo's face. "I knew it!" he crowed. "I knew you'd like it. Old man Rupert has the best pizza in New York. We have it all the time. Want more?"

Raphael grudgingly allowed Mikey to feed him more of the pizza, even though he wasn't really very hungry. Mostly it was because the other turtle seemed so enthused about feeding him, even as he chattered to Raphael about himself and his brothers. If Leo had been all torment, sadness and anger, then Mikey was oddly conversational and friendly.

Raphael wasn't entirely sure what to do about that. He could snarl and tell the smaller mutant turtle to leave him alone, but something about that seemed… unappealing. The idea of Mikey's eyes and face filled with sadness and hurt made him squirm uncomfortably, even though he couldn't say why. So he simply lay there, eating pizza and listening to his brother prattle.

"Okay, open. We're living in this place because these robots chewed through our old home and everything we had, so we're camping out here until we can find someplace new," Mikey was saying. "That really sucks, but what really scared us was when Father was kidnapped and… oh, you already know about that. Right. Open."

As he swallowed the next chunk of pizza, Raphael found himself wondering how Mikey could be so nonchalant about losing his home — the home, he said, that he had lived in ever since he mutated. Hesitantly, Raphael said so.

Mikey's eyes widened. "Well, yeah, it sucked," he repeated. "But it was just stuff, you know? I'm gonna miss a lot of the things that got broken by those robots, but… what I really wanted was for my dad to be safe, and my broth… and Leo and Donnie."

It flashed through Raphael's head — imagining how he would feel if the Foot headquarters had been razed the way Mikey's home had been. He wasn't sure he would be as calm about it as the other Turtle was.

"Open," Mikey said, holding out another forkful of pizza. "And we spent months and months down there, training all the time. That was okay with Leo, because he loves training — like, it's actually fun for him to train. He's probably the most ninja-ey ninja you'll ever meet, which can be kinda hard to measure up to sometimes, you know?"

Raphael grunted.

"And then there's Donnie. He's kind of Leo's opposite, 'cause he's good at ninja stuff too, but he really likes working with machines and science. He made his own computer out of parts. Can you believe that? He took like six broken laptops, took them apart and made a new one out of the pieces. And he says he's gonna make another one once he finds some more broken laptops. Can you believe that?"

Raphael didn't know what to say, so he just grunted again.

"I wonder if that's why he and Leo fight sometimes — 'cause they like different things," Mikey said meditatively. "They get into arguments — Donnie says Leo's doing something all wrong, so Leo loses his temper, and I gotta step in and make them stop before they really get into it."

Raphael's eyes moved to the closed door behind Mikey. Leo and Donnie were still in the kitchen, and he could hear their voices during the brief moments when Mikey wasn't talking. They still sounded strained, angry. He wondered if they were arguing about him — what this machine-loving Donnie thought they should do with him.

"But they're both really good guys," Mikey said suddenly, almost pleadingly. "I mean, Leo and Donnie fight a lot because they disagree about stuff and sometimes I need to make them break it up. But we're family and so I know they really love each other, and when things really get bad they'll have each other's backs — and mine too. I just… you should think about that." He squirmed. "Because it'd be really cool if you were a part of it too."

His eyes were fixed on the floor, as if he were expecting Raphael to yell at him for daring to suggest such a thing. But Raphael found himself unsure what to think. Some part of him was sure that Leo had put Mikey up to this, trying to lure him into a false sense of security with all his chatter. That Mikey had just been softening him up with pizza and talk, and his real goal all along had been to get him to come join them.

But as he watched Mikey's unease, he found that he couldn't quite believe that the smaller Turtle was that duplicitous. Mikey's emotions were too nakedly displayed on his face — a mingling of anxiety, sadness and hope — for Raphael to think that he was just doing this at Leo's behest. He was practically squirming with those feelings. He really wanted Raphael to join them.

And Raphael wasn't sure what to think about that. Being wanted wasn't a feeling he was used to.

Mikey was still awkwardly staring at his knees, fiddling with the fork. He seemed to have lost his previous enthusiasm, or at least his volubility. Raphael watched him silently for a moment, before deciding that he'd had enough of Mikey's silence.

"More pizza," he said gruffly.

Mikey's head snapped up, and his smile slipped easily back onto his face. "Whatever you want, Raph. I mean, within reason."


	39. Chapter 39

Raphael had barely finished the pizza when the door opened again, and Donatello stepped into the room. The first thing Raphael noticed about him was that the taller Turtle seemed to be avoiding looking at him. He didn't have the intense scrutiny that Leo had, or the open friendliness of Mikey. He looked almost… uncomfortable.

Maybe he was afraid, Raphael reflected. No matter what they thought of him, he was still a member of the Foot Clan, and he had been trained to kill. Maybe Donatello was worried about what Raphael would do to them for kidnapping him.

"Hey, Donnie," Mikey said cheerfully. "Raph just finished his first slice of pizza ever. Where's Leo?"

"He's talking to Father right now," Donnie said, his eyes finally working their way over to Raphael's face. Raphael saw with a tinge of confusion that Donnie didn't look afraid, but… no, it was something other than fear. It was more like he was standing on something small and mildly painful, and was unable to step off. His deep brown eyes were taking in the chains wound around Raphael's arms and legs, and the look of discomfort on his face deepened.

"Mikey, why don't you take the plate back to the kitchen?" Donnie said,

"Okay," Mikey said reluctantly. "Raph, I'll be back in a little while, okay? Then we can talk some more."

Raphael grunted noncommittally, though he had to admit he hadn't minded Mikey's chatter as much as he thought he would. It was kind of… nice to have someone speak to him without reservations, without shying away from him either because of what he was or because of what he could do. There were only a few people who had done that — Toshiro-sensei, Master Shredder… and Mother.

His eyes moved to Donatello, and Donatello finally met them. He looked determined — almost defiant — as he moved closer to the bed, not breaking away from Raphael's gaze even once. When he finally did, it was just to turn around and seat himself on the mattress, where he sat silently for a while. Seconds ticked by, and Raphael began to squirm as he waited for the other turtle to do something.

"I want you to know, I wasn't in favor of this," Donnie said at last.

"What?"

"This." Donnie gestured vaguely at Raphael's body. "Kidnapping you and bringing you here. I didn't think it was right."

"You did it anyway," Raphael groused. "What do you want, a cookie?"

"No," Donnie said, stiffening slightly. "I just wanted you to know — before I try to make you understand — that I'm not just blindly following what Father and Leo tell me to say."

"Make me understand what?"

Don sighed. "How long and how hard we've been looking for you, Raphael."

Raphael felt his frown deepening. A memory flashed through his mind — of Donnie saying desperately to him, _"We've been looking for you for months — we want to bring you home with us!"_ At the time, the statement had just filled him with confusion and fury, but now he had no choice but to listen to whatever it was Donnie had to say.

Donnie lowered his head, and his thick fingers were twisting together anxiously. "Leo told me that he told you how we mutated — how you got separated from the rest of us, and then you… apparently got picked up by the Foot Clan." He finally looked down at Raphael, looking apprehensive. "And I suppose after they found you, you mutated, and then they trained you. Taught you to become a ninja."

"Right," Raphael said warily.

His tone seemed to temporarily disorient Donnie, but the bo-wielding Turtle seemed to regain his bearings quickly. "Well… after you found out about us, did you wonder about we did for more than a year before we found you?"

"You said you were lookin' for me," Raphael said gruffly.

That seemed to surprise Donnie. "So you remembered that. I wasn't sure you would," he said. "Well, it's true. We started looking for you… almost as soon as we learned to speak and the basics of how to defend ourselves. We learned those fast, so it didn't take long for us to look for you. Even though we… even though there were some enemies searching for us, trying to take us back to StockGen — even before we had finished our training — we looked for you.

"We went over every rooftop, through every alley, every homeless shelter we could find. We checked in parks, and abandoned buildings, behind dumpsters and broken cars. We searched everywhere for you, because we had no idea you — you weren't there." His voice faltered slightly. "And when we met Casey, he asked questions that we couldn't — whether anyone had seen someone with green skin, or a giant talking turtle. He even sneaked into freak shows to see if someone had made you a part of one. We — we looked in every place we could think of, and we've been doing that for almost as long as we've been mutated."

Raphael's eyes flickered slightly as Donnie paused, searching the water-stained ceiling over him. He didn't know what Donatello's little story was making him feel — all he was experiencing was more confusion, a tangle of anxiety, rebelliousness and, strangely, sadness. He wasn't even sure why he was feeling sad, but that emotion was stirring inside him nonetheless.

And suddenly he thought of his ninja training with the Foot, his long days with Toshiro-sensei. While that had been going on, the other three had been searching for him — he suddenly had visions of them racing over rooftops and swinging down into slimy, trash-strewn alleys, calling out his name into the night and receiving no reply.

If he had met them back then… what would he have done? Could he have thrown away his life with the Foot back then, when his ties hadn't been so strong?

"And I'm going to be honest with you," Donnie finally continued. "I… I was ready to give up, sometimes. It wasn't that I didn't want to find you, but it seemed like such a hopeless quest, and we had so little to show for it. I thought that you were probably dead." He sounded ashamed of himself, and his fingers were twisting together again. "But Father never stopped believing that we would find you. He chalked it up to fate, or destiny, or whatever… but the point is that he believed we would find you, somehow. He never even considered the possibility that we wouldn't.

"And Leo… Leo wouldn't give up, no matter what. He's always the first to do what Father wants, so he also never once considered the search to be hopeless. He had doubts — I saw them occasionally — but he didn't let them get in the way of finding you. He was determined to find you and bring you home, no matter who or what he had to fight through."

"Are you tryin' to make me feel guilty?" Raphael said curtly.

"No, I'm not. I'm trying to make you see how much we want you back — how long we tried. And — and even though I can't really approve of what they did, I want you to understand how desperate Father and Leo are, doing something like this." Donnie seemed to slump as he looked back at Raphael, his brown eyes betraying how tired he was. "And I want to ask you a question. I don't want you to answer it, just think about it. Do you think the Foot Clan would search for you all those months, for no reason other than to bring you home?"

Raphael almost snapped back that the Foot Clan would search for him — that they were probably doing so right now. But his fierce response died on his tongue, as the last part of Donatello's sentence sank into his mind. Master Shredder would search for him, it was true — but because Raphael had proven himself a capable ninja, a sharp weapon for him to unleash against his enemies.

If he weren't capable of being a lethal ninja, Raphael didn't know what would happen to him.

"They don't know me enough to care about me," he said at last.

"Maybe not," Donnie said, rising to his feet. "But somehow they do anyway, and I think they would both do anything to know you better. They're not going to find any peace as long as you're not with us."

He strode across the room with the silence only a ninja could walk in, without a single creak or scrape to betray what he was doing. Then he seized the doorknob and yanked the door open, allowing Mikey to tumble headfirst into the room, landing in an undignified sprawl.

"Do you have to spy on me?" Donnie said tartly.

"Dude, I'm a ninja," Mikey said.

"Can you at least be stealthy and not rub against the door when you're spying?"

"Oh, that's how you found me?" Mikey said sheepishly, grinning. "My bad." His eyes fell on Raphael, and lit up like a pair of light bulbs. "Hey, Raph!"

"He's chained to the bed. Who else would be there?" Donnie said.

As the two squabbled gently, Raphael saw a third green shape appear behind Mikey, his swords resting lightly against his shoulders. Leo nudged his way past the two of them and approached the bed, his face even graver and more thoughtful than it had been before.

Raphael briefly thought about what Donnie had said before — that Leo had never given up on him even once. And he wondered if that showed dedication and determination, or just meant that Leo was willing to chase after things he didn't understand.

"Father would like to speak with you now," Leo said.


	40. Chapter 40

Hamato Yoshi. Raphael felt his muscles growing taut as the other three Turtles fell silent, their eyes flitting to one another. Even Mikey was quiet and solemn, looking from Leo to Raphael and back again.

Then Leo turned back to Raphael, as if waiting for him to say something. Raphael frowned, not sure what Leo wanted him to do, until he realized that Leo's comment had been a sort of request rather than an announcement. He was waiting for Raphael to say that he agreed to speak to him… which was nice, he guessed. He wasn't really used to people getting his permission for… well, anything.

On the other hand… he shouldn't want to hear what Hamato Yoshi had to say. The rat was his master's enemy. He was trying to sway Raphael over to his side, and hadn't made any secret of it.

But then again… maybe he could get some answers for the things that had been plaguing him. Such as the questions about the enmity between Yoshi and Master Shredder, or how someone could come back from the dead. Raphael's face scrunched as warring impulses clashed inside his head, and it took him a minute or two to make up his mind.

"All right," he said warily.

Leo looked relieved, and quickly glanced back at the door. A dark figure appeared in it, behind Mikey, and stepped into the room.

"My sons…" Yoshi began to say, but stopped himself. After a moment of thought, he amended, "Leonardo, Donatello and Michelangelo… please leave the room. I wish to speak to Raphael alone."

The three of them glanced at each other, turning from face to face, and then silently marched out and down the stairs. "If you're still hungry, I'll bring you some more pizza later," Mikey called over his shoulder, before Donnie's arm snaked out and dragged him away.

Raphael paid no attention to the other turtles. His eyes were focused warily on the mutant rat, who looked so harmless and unassuming in his faded kimono, holding a walking stick. The very opposite of Master Shredder, who always looked imposing and larger-than life.

Yet there had to be more to Hamato Yoshi than met the eye — and not just all those cryptic comments about him having died, or the family he had lost. Raphael had never seen Master Shredder react so strongly to any person as he had to Yoshi — not once with such hatred and such determination. And despite his slightness and his harmless appearance, the rat had defeated dozens of Foot ninja with nothing more than a katana. He had defeated Raphael too, and without too much trouble.

Yoshi came closer, and seated himself beside Raphael. "Do you know who I am?" he said quietly.

"Hamato Yoshi," Raphael replied.

The rat smiled slightly. "Yes, that was my name in another life," he said. "Now I go by a simpler name, that of Splinter."

"Yeah. So?"

"And I ask you again, do you know who I am?"

More answers flew through Raphael's head: _a mutant, a rat, an enemy, Master Shredder's enemy, somebody who acts like he knows me._ He thought about flinging them out at Splinter, but eventually decided to just say, "No."

"To your brothers, I am their master," Splinter said. "To all four of you, I am your father."

Raphael narrowed his eyes. "Sounds pretty crazy. You're a rat, and I'm a turtle."

Splinter smiled. "I understand this is very confusing, and that there is a great deal you do not yet know — a great deal your brothers do not know either." His eyes softened. "Nevertheless, I am your father, Raphael. I cared for you and looked after you even before you mutated, when you were only an ordinary turtle hatchling."

"I don't remember back then," Raphael said.

Splinter rested one hand on Raphael's bicep. "Then tell me what you do remember. What your earliest memory is."

It was such an odd thing to say that Raphael just stared at him in bewilderment. For a moment he wondered if Splinter was trying to trap him or trick him — trying to get information on the Foot or Master Shredder through guile. But… no, there wouldn't be any harm in telling him something like that, something from so long ago. Something that only involved Raphael himself.

"I remember," he said slowly, "waking up in the lab just after I mutated. I broke the aquarium I was in, and there was screamin' and cryin'. Then Master Shredder came in, and… I don't remember what he said, but I remember he was lookin' at me and talking about me."

"I see," Splinter said, sadness creeping into his eyes. "So Oroku Saki was the very first person you saw."

"Yeah," Raphael said defiantly.

"And how did he treat you in the days that followed? Was he kind to you?"

"I—" Raphael started to reply, before the words caught in his throat. Was this some kind of trap? "He didn't see me much after that. He gave me to Toshiro-sensei to train right after that. But when he did see me, he watched me practice fightin'."

"So Saki wished for you to become a ninja," Splinter said slowly. "Did he ever give you a choice in what you were to become?"

Raphael blinked. "I don't remember." His eyes blazed. "Are you tryin' to confuse me?"

"No, Raphael, I am trying to understand you."

"I don't need you to understand. I don't need anything from you, 'specially since you ain't exactly giving me choices now." He clenched his fists against the chains. "Master Shredder wanted me to be a ninja, and so I wanted it too."

"To please him," Splinter said. "Did you ever wish to be a ninja for your own sake?"

Raphael turned his head away again, feeling frustration rising in his chest. Why did the rat keep asking these bizarre questions, keep trying to overcomplicate what was a perfectly simple situation? And with every annoying question there came a little shiver of doubt, another question nagging at him with no answers.

"I did later. So they wouldn't see me as a freak," he finally blurted out. He immediately regretted saying it — it made him sound so pathetic.

Splinter did not answer right away, but his head bowed slightly and his eyes filled with a strange pitying look. "You must have been terribly lonely," he said quietly, placing his hand on Raphael's forehead and gently stroking it.

For a moment, a memory of another hand caressing him flashed through Raphael's mind — Mother, when he had confided in her his fears about not being good enough for the Foot. She had wrapped him in her arms and murmured that he would always be good enough because of who he was, her strong brave boy, and he had felt her hand stroking his face.

Mother. He felt a piercing ache in his chest as he wondered why she was gone — why she had left him. He needed her more than ever now, when he was trapped and confused, far from his home. She was the only thing that had kept his loneliness at bay — without her, he felt like he was drowning in it, like quicksand.

"I s'pose you're gonna tell me that I wouldn't be lonely here, huh?" he said roughly.

Splinter smiled. "I did not say that. You did." The smile faded slightly. "Did you have no friendships in the Foot?"

Only two people came into Raphael's mind — the Foot ninja who guarded his bedroom door, and Toshiro-sensei. Neither was exactly a friend, as the turtle understood it — one was his sensei, and the other simply the only person who would talk to him without apprehension or revulsion.

"I didn't need friends," he said sullenly, shifting uncomfortably in his chains.

"If that is what you say," Splinter said patiently, but that sorrowful, pitying look had come into his eyes once again.

He bowed his head again, and Raphael waited for him to say something more — some other question probing him, trying to separate him from the Foot and Master Shredder. He was ready for whatever Splinter had to say. He could take it.

"Your form was very impressive when we fought, Raphael," Splinter said at last. "Who taught you?"

"Toshiro-sensei," Raphael said before he could think of whether or not to answer.

"Ah, and this Toshiro, he taught you everything you know?"

"He made me a ninja faster than anyone else in the history of the Foot," Raphael said with fierce pride.

"That is indeed an achievement," Splinter said. "Were the other ninja impressed by your accomplishment?"

Raphael's pride melted away like ice in the summer sun, leaving him with the sensation of having been lightly punched in the stomach. "No," he said at last. "They weren't."

He remembered his naive hopes that finishing his training would make them all see that he was like them, a ninja worthy to stand alongside the best of the Foot Clan. Then he had hoped that succeeding on missions would make them realize that he was a true Foot ninja. Those dreams had been whittled away little by little, until at last he knew the painful truth.

That knowledge seemed to stab through him as he admitted it to himself once again, starkly and without pretense. He wasn't one of them, and never had been… and without a miracle, he never would be. He was a part of the Foot, but not truly one of the Foot's ninja — he was Master Shredder's weapon and nothing more, as far as they were concerned. His stomach twisted as he turned his face away from Splinter, wanting nothing more than to be left alone with his misery.

Splinter seemed to sense this. He placed his hand atop Raphael's chained one, and said quietly, "That is enough conversation for one day, my son. I will send your brothers to attend on you in a little while, when you have gathered your thoughts."

He walked out of the room silently, as only a ninja could move, and Raphael closed his eyes.


	41. Chapter 41

They were the longest minutes of Leo's life, waiting for his father to finish speaking to Raphael. He had sent them down into the shop below — presumably to keep them from eavesdropping — and vanished into Raphael's room. Leo strained to hear anything he could from the bottom of the stairs, but he heard nothing. Well, at least Raphael wasn't screaming at him. Perhaps that was a good sign.

"What do you think they're talkin' about?" Mikey asked, peeking over Leo's shoulder.

"I have no idea," Leo said truthfully.

He wished he did have an idea, but Splinter had not confided in them what he was planning to say. But he hoped that his father had dreamed up something brilliant to say to Raphael — something that would sway the black-masked Turtle's allegiance to the Foot Clan, and convince him that he belonged with his family. He had meditated long enough while his sons tried to talk to Raphael themselves.

Then again, Leo had the feeling that nothing would sway Raphael in such a short time. The roots of the Foot Clan were deeply buried in Raphael's spirit, and even though Leo had seem some flickers of doubt in his eyes, they still had a long way to go with him.

The problem was, he wasn't sure how long they had. It wasn't clear how much Shredder valued Raphael — he apparently did enough to send guards after him — but if he wanted Raphael back badly, he might send out large numbers of Foot ninja to find him. They had been rooted out of their home, and the apartment where they were staying was more exposed than they were used to. If the Foot went searching for Raphael, they might find him here — or worse, he might get loose and go back to them before his family could get through to him.

The door gently closed above him, breaking through his thoughts. His father came down the stairs, his eyes distant, and Leo felt his stomach lurch.

"Father?" he said quietly. "What — what happened?"

Splinter heaved a sigh, and turned to Mikey. "I believe we should leave Raphael to think for a short time. He has been confronted by a great many truths that will make him uncomfortable. Then, Michelangelo, perhaps you could keep him company."

"Will do!" Mikey said cheerily, apparently pleased by the idea of spending more time with his lost brother.

As Mikey scampered up the stairs, Splinter smiled fondly at his youngest son. "Michelangelo has a special talent for befriending others," he said quietly. "Raphael needs someone like him, I think."

"Did you manage to get through to Raphael, Father?" Donnie asked.

A troubled look crossed his father's face, only to be smoothed over as he turned to his other two sons. "Trying to directly convince Raphael would be fruitless," he said reflectively. "He would see it as an attack on everything that he has become, everything that he defends, and thus it would only harden his heart against us. It would make him see us as his enemies, no matter what family bonds tie us."

Leo felt his spirits sink. "So… you're saying it's hopeless?" he said quietly.

His father's clawed hand settled on his shoulder. "I did not say that, Leonardo, because it is not. Rather, we must convince Raphael using ninja tactics rather than the direct approach — we must be subtle and stealthy, and reveal weaknesses in our enemies. That was what I attempted to do with Raphael — discover how his life with the Foot has been, and learn what his life is lacking that we can provide."

"What did you discover, Father?" Leo asked.

Splinter's eyes grew sadder. "That he is desperately lonely, Leonardo. But he is so accustomed to it that he does not realize that the Foot Clan is slowly smothering him in his isolation. He has no friends, none who are close to him there. They see him as a freak, even though he has done everything for them."

Leo felt a spike of anger at the thought of Raphael being treated that way, so constantly that loneliness and ostracization were no longer even things for him to notice. No brother of his should be treated the way the Foot Clan was treating him. It just made him want to tear Raphael away from the Shredder, so that he could always be surrounded by those who would actually care about him rather than using him.

"What can we do now?" he said, crossing his arms.

Master Splinter sighed, looking back up the stairs. "We can let him go."

* * *

Raphael was relieved when the door clicked shut behind Hamato Yoshi — no, Splinter; it meant he could relax, let the turmoil inside him seep onto his face.

He had expected the mutant rat to try to convince him to join them — after all, wasn't that the whole reason they had caught him and dragged him here in chains? But Splinter had seemed less interested in convincing him, and more interested in… well, hearing about Raphael himself. And like an idiot, he had let Splinter draw out all sorts of confusing facts about himself and the Foot Clan, tearing away all the scabs that had formed over what he was most sensitive about.

What was Splinter trying to do? Did he really just want to know about Raphael, or was he trying to do something else? He wasn't sure what he could do aside from sit there in sullen silence, but at the same time…

Then he stiffened as the door creaked open.

"It's me again," Mikey called out, poking his head into the room. "Can I come in?"

"It's your place," Raphael said, keeping his voice as steady as he could. "You decide."

Mikey seemed to take that as an invitation. He bounced in and sat down beside Raphael, his face still open and friendly as before. But now he seemed a little more watchful — his eyes followed Raphael's face, as if trying to read his thoughts. "Hey, are you still hungry?" he said hopefully.

"No."

"Do you like comic books? I could read you a comic book. I'd show you the pictures, obviously."

"Never seen one."

"Never?" Mikey said disbelievingly. "The Foot Clan seriously doesn't have pizza or comic books? Dude, how about video games?"

Raphael sighed, and shook his head.

Mikey almost goggled at him. "But — what do you do when you're not out ninja-ing?" he said. "What do you do with your friends?"

Raphael had to bite down on his tongue to keep from saying again that he didn't need friends. He had the feeling Mikey wouldn't understand what it was like to not have them — he had nattered about making friends with humans, something that Raphael had thought wasn't even possible. Raph himself could feel the other Turtle's charisma — there was just something about Mikey that made it hard not to like him.

When he didn't answer, Mikey frowned and put a hand on Raphael's shoulder, as if sympathizing with him. "It's not good to be all by yourself, Raph. It'll mess you up. People are supposed to have friends and family."

Raphael almost contradicted him, just out of habit — he wanted to deny the idea that he needed them, that he should be with them. But he couldn't say Mikey was wrong. He had spent too much time mulling over his rejection by the Foot Clan to claim that he didn't care about being alone. And he was too upset by the loss of Mother to pretend that he didn't want someone who understood him there to support him. He did care. He did want it. He craved it — it had been the reason he had wanted the Foot Clan to accept him as one of its ninja.

He just didn't know how he could have it.


End file.
